[76701] in North American Network Operators' Group
RE: New Computer? Six Steps to Safer Surfing
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Christopher L. Morrow)
Tue Dec 21 01:23:05 2004
Date: Tue, 21 Dec 2004 06:22:17 +0000 (GMT)
From: "Christopher L. Morrow" <christopher.morrow@mci.com>
In-reply-to: <13482185908960@schlep.emanon.com>
To: Scott Morris <swm@emanon.com>
Cc: "'Matthew S. Hallacy'" <poptix@poptix.net>,
'Sean Donelan' <sean@donelan.com>, nanog@merit.edu
Errors-To: owner-nanog-outgoing@merit.edu
On Sun, 19 Dec 2004, Scott Morris wrote:
>
> So when the majority of people begin using a different operating system, is
> there some reason that the majority of virus-writers or other malcontents
> wouldn't focus on the flaws there?
>
> Or are we stuck in this little bubble thinking that unix REALLY is THAT
> secure?
>
> Perhaps it is, but my viewpoint is that it's really shortsighted to make
> this assumption. Just because it hasn't happened yet doesn't mean that it
> can't. Wolves go where the sheep are plentiful and less protected. As they
it has happened:
iis/sadmin worm 2001-may
apache-scalper worm
l10n worm
morris-sendmail-extravaganza
current-ssh-exploit-fun
there are others of course... it's not the OS that matters in the long
run, it's the administration of that OS (or so it seems to me, admittedly
not a sysadmin though, anymore). Sure, initial/default installs might be
problematic in one/all OS's, but by and large extended lifetimes on a
live/hostile network means patches must be applied. Seems like that
doesn't happen by and large.
-Chris
