Dec 22 2004
KYE Trend Analysis
Know Your Enemy — Trend Analysis
Boiled down, this whitepaper states that Linux systems are being compromised in months, whereas Win32 systems are being compromised in hours or minutes. The suprising statistic is that Linux systems are staying safer longer then they did a year ago. The paper suggests a couple of reasons, mainly that the installation of most Linux distro’s are coming out better secured by default.
I think the main reason is because a hacker is going to get more bang for their buck off a compromised Win32 system than off a Linux system. A Win32 user, on average is going to be less likely to even notice the comprimise and once they do notice, they’re going to be less likely to know what to do about it. Plus, the sheer number of Win32 systems almost guarantees that any vulnerability, no matter how small, will find unpatched hosts out there.
Which leads us back to layered security: Security is like an onion, it has layers. I was going somewhere with an obscure Shrek referrence, but I think I’ll sign off now instead.
Know Your Enemy stats.. Linux getting harder to compromise…
Martin McKeay’s Network Security Blog: KYE Trend Analysis An interesting entry over at Martin McKeay’s blog covering the info. from the Honeynet Project about trends seen in compromise of systems on the Internet from their research.. Looks like Linux s…