Study: Safest OS isn't Windows--or Linux

[The Hunter]

Linux advocates often take pride in the operating system being more secure than Windows but this claim may have attracted unwanted attention from the hacking community.

An analysis of hacker attacks on online servers in January by UK-based security consultancy mi2g found that Linux servers were the most frequently hit, accounting for 13,654 successful attacks, or 80 percent of the survey total. Windows came in a distant second with 2,005 attacks.

A detailed analysis of government servers also found Linux to be more susceptible, accounting for 57 percent of all security breaches.




In a similar study last year, Microsoft Windows proved to be more vulnerable, accounting for 51 percent of successful attacks on government servers.

However, the sharp rise in Linux breaches probably reflects a lack of training and deployment expertise rather than inherent security problems within Linux, mi2g officials suggested.
Read more here.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105_2-5162348.html

[RJ5500]

I always was a fan of BSD. Being on an intel x86 platform, I cannot run Mac OS X (even though I would if I could).

BSD, compared to linux or Windows is solid.

[begoodbebad]

Someone show this to Lucian :shoot

People have been attacking windows relentlessly for several years and given the intensity of the attacks it would be more surprising if they didn't find vulnerabilities. Now it is the turn of Linux...we will see something similar, new vulnerabilities exposed on a regular basis.
I read something interesting the other day on this subject. Linux is considered to be more secure for various reasons but one of the main ones is that users are logged on as users, not as root, so ultimately the damage possible is limited if a user is careless or dumb or unlucky...the OS survives. However as Linux becomes more mainstream by becoming easily useable by the average workstation/home user then there will be the prospect of millions of people who either don't know or care enough not to log on as root every time...cos they will pick the easiest option which is to always be able to do whatever without having to bother with password controlled access...so just log in as root at the start of the session and don't worry...At some point Linux will reach a kind of critical mass where it is both normal and acceptable but also at the same point the way people use it will make it very very attractive to virus writers, black hat hackers, script kiddies....should be fun listening to the horrified screams of indignation.

[Malicious Intent]

I doubt Linux will ever reach that critical mass. I think that people have been saying that Linux will win over since Windows was first released. Those that use Linux seem to think that it should win out and so it will. Those that don't can't be bothered with the hassle and think that it wont.
So far, those that don't have been right.
I'm on a Windows machine with a Linux hardware firewall. The joke is on anyone who hacks me, as there really isn't anything worth trying to get in my network for!

[RJ5500]

I think Linux is fundamentally more secure than Windows, but it's all in how it's configured.

Then again, Windows can be real secure with the right devices in place such as hardware firewalls.

[shawners]

IF all the users jumped to linux, linux be the most attacked and hacked. People attack windows cause of the user base and it can do the most damage since most of the population uses windows and may have few pc's with windows on it(Work, Home, Office, Laptop). So linux is only secure cause we all havent switched to it.