Even Unpatched, Linux Most Secure OS   12/22/2004 - 1,402 views, 1 Comment

Well, its kissing cousin, Linux, the people who brought you that adorable penguin, Tux, is more secure, even unpatched, than are other computer systems, and specifically Windows, even when patched. And that’s with the 985 bugs recently found in the Linux kernal (but to put it in perspective, that’s in 5.7 million lines of code.

According to a new report by the Honeynet Project, Linux is far more secure than Windows, and one of the most secure OSs around. For those not familiar, the Honeynet Project is a non-profit organization dedicated to information security.

Lance Spitzner, President of the Honeynet Project, explains that the reasons for the relative security in even hole-ridden versions of Linux are two-fold. First, recent versions of Linux have been more secure in general. And second, because Windows has a wider and more public deployment, that’s where the hackers flock first (and by extension, that’s where there are more ill-gotten gains to be had).

Of course, no system is immune from one of the most basic ways for a hacker to get in - password guessing with a dictionary attack. And that has been rampant in the past few months, so be sure to use hard-to-guess passwords, not found in the dictionary and containing a combination of letters and numbers or other symbols, and change your passwords often.