> If windows is roughly equivalent in security to linux, then why are
> there so few viruses that break down *nix servers?  Is this merely a
> function of the virus-writers targeting the unsusupecting windows
> non-technical users?  Or is it because windows does in fact have more
> exploitable security holes.

1. Hacking Windows boxes gives more bang/buck because the goal of virus
writers is to spread their ilk. A perfect Linux virus would span at most
20% of installed systems now. That does not look attractive ?!

2. Windows libraries have countless undocumented 'shortcuts' meant to
speed up the system. The shortcuts circumvent many system security
features (such as never running any processes that interpret network data
with root privileges). This means that the first breach means a
compromised machine, with immediate root access. This is not the case on
*nix where compartmentation is very strict. A breach on a *nix machine
usually exposes a very small set of features because of this.

3. When you say *nix you actually say one dozen (two dozen ?) different
platforms, operating system versions, and setups. There is no way to write
a virus that efficiently attacks all of these. It would have to be the
size and complexity of Mozilla.

4. *nix users actually do have a clue as to what they are doing most of
the time, as opposed to the competition which is limited to clicking on
message boxes which usually say such tremendously helpful things as 'your
system is on fire. [ok] [cancel]'. This is due to log messages, and access
to tools that can pick the system's brains and tell what's wrong. This
means a capability to react, even if not everyone knows how to use it.

Peter

--
http://www.piclist.com hint: The list server can filter out subtopics
(like ads or off topics) for you. See http://www.piclist.com/#topics