On Fri, Jun 18, 2010 at 7:09 PM, Joe Maina <maina307@gmail.com> wrote:
The thing is if it (Linux) was as popular as windows am certain its vunerabilities would be exploited same as windows.
The basic problem with the above line of thought (popular among Windows apologists) is that Linux along with its other Unix siblings are the main OS internet servers. Also, a lot of the network hardware like routers/switches/firewall devices run embedded linux / freebsd. It may not be as visible like a client OS (like Windows) ... but its huge spread and reach as the backbone of the internet would make it a high value target ? In reality the problem is with certain fundamentally flawed technologies popular on windows .. e.g. MS-Office/Word/Outlook email scripting which are petri-dishes for a majority of the windows viruses. Also in favour of linux is the diversity of distributions ...e.g. email / address-book functionality is not uniform across different linux distributions which makes it un-economical for a malware writer to target a specific linux distro... it is much more worthwhile spending time writing a virus for windows where there is no such diversity of implementations. Epidemics normally target large populations with common genetic weaknesses....