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ozdream
01-24-2005, 04:37 AM
G'day all, Can anyone direct me to a site that has plan english information on why Linux is "more secure" than windows and why windows has so many security issues.

It is for a research project my daughter is doing on OS's.

Thanks Glen


Oh, of course one can belive this BS, no down right lies....

Windows suffered fewer security vulnerabilities than Linux last year, according to figures released by vulnerability tracker SecurityFocus.

Although the statistics so far only go up to August 2001, aggregated distributions of the Linux operating system suffered 96 vulnerabilities while Windows NT/2000 suffered only 42.

Breaking the figures down by distribution, Mandrake Linux 7.2 notched up 33 vulnerabilities, Red Hat 7.0 suffered 28, Mandrake 7.1 had 27 and Debian 2.2 had 26.

Windows, on the other hand, shared fourth most vulnerable position with 24, alongside Sun Solaris 7.0 and 8.0.

Although in previous years Windows has suffered the most vulnerabilities when compared to individual distributions, against the Linux aggregate the Microsoft operating system has consistently come out looking better off than its open source brethren.

For five years straight, in fact, Windows has come out less scathed than Linux, with 2000 pinpointed as the most significant year when Linux suffered over 150 vulnerabilities and Windows fell just short of 100.

Yosuke_
01-24-2005, 06:06 AM
Windows suffered fewer security vulnerabilities than Linux last year, according to figures released by vulnerability tracker SecurityFocus.
Maybe its because there are more webservers running Linux than Windows! I think crackers are going for Linux, because they are more! And most of the time, users mis-configure something and leave a hole in system!

quip
01-24-2005, 10:15 AM
The reason is simple--when you get four disks of software, you are probably going to have a few more vulnerabilities than the os that came on one.
The sheer volume of software accounts for the difference. Also, there is a lot of difference between types of vulnerabilities. A bug that allows local privelage escalation is a lot different than one that allows anyone to blow your box away just because you visited their web site, or just because you're connected to the internet...

hard candy
01-24-2005, 10:38 AM
http://www.theregister.co.uk/security/security_report_windows_vs_linux/

DrLZRDMN
01-24-2005, 05:00 PM
actualy this only proves that developement is speading up. Since there were more bugs found that means that there are now less unkown, there could still be just as many or more bugs in windows but the haven't been oficialy found yet.

If several things that could have gone wrong have not gone wrong, it would have been ultimately beneficial for them to have gone wrong.

If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something.

bwkaz
01-24-2005, 08:09 PM
Virus specific, but see:

http://linuxmafia.com/~rick/faq/index.php?page=virus#virus