8 ms·

Whilst I've never been a Microsoft user, it's refreshing to see these moves. For decades they've been an opponent of anything being OSS, let alone running on OS

by cik 6y ago

Whilst I've never been a Microsoft user, it's refreshing to see these moves. For decades they've been an opponent of anything being OSS, let alone running on OSS. While the move isn't for everyone (heck, not me) it's still a very positive step, pretty much in line with Nadella's underlying strategy vis-a-vis Microsoft's newfound growth. Security mandates such as PCI mandate running anti-virus and friends on a per host basis. They demand a 24-hour event review, FIM, etc. If tools like this come to Linux, it'll make it significantly easier for many organizations to start complying with these mandates. To be clear - these organizations already take security at best as a suggestion - these tools help reduce the barrier to entry so that at least the basics can be addressed. I'd imagine that well over 95% of Linux users would never run Microsoft tools on Linux. At the same time, for those Windows shops that are experimenting with Linux, or need to support a few workloads, can't afford the dedicated expertise (yet) this is definitely a step forward to help them.

TheRealDunkirk 6y ago
> If tools like this come to Linux, it'll make it significantly easier for many organizations to start complying with these mandates. You said a lot more than you probably intended. Microsoft created the Microsoft-loving, Linux-hating trade press in the 90's. Consultancies fell into line, and started pushing the theory to uncritical IT management that if you had a computer connected to the corporate network, it had to run a virus scanner. Period; full stop. Regardless of operating system. I've never met anyone in corporate IT who actually does the math, and determines whether a particular threat vector is worth the cost of the preventative measure. The philosophy in the 3 Fortune 250's I've worked for has been: if it exists, it must be purchased/used/applied. In the 90's, yes, every WINDOWS computer connected to the corporate network needed the corporate AV running on it. Linux? Mac? Not so much. Even if they managed to get compromised, the chance that they would infect a neighboring computer were very small. These odds didn't justify the expense or the hassle of needing them to slaved into the corporate AV solution, no matter how much Microsoft diverted attention away from the very special problem that Windows has always posed from a security standpoint, how much they paid the trade press to paper over it, and how much they partnered with consultancies to push that line. They didn't care about the mainframe, did they? They didn't care about the Unix workstations, either. But Linux? It was the devil. We have come full circle. Microsoft is trying their hardest to astroturf the message that WSL enables a lot of development workflows for which Windows has been a poor choice of late, and this requires them to "love Linux." So now Microsoft MUST release their Defender product for Linux, in order to be taken seriously BY THE VERY CULTURE THEY CREATED. As a guy who run Linux on the desktop for 19 years, and got my corporate IT (in the 90's) to consider Linux all the way to the point of them looking into a virus scanner for it (finding that Symantec didn't support it, and dropping the idea), the irony here is both delicious and sickening at the same time. As I keep saying, I'll believe Microsoft "loves" Linux they day they create Office and an AD client for it.
- jjice 6y ago
  I wonder how much work would have to go into porting Office to Linux. My first thought is that since they've had it on MacOS for years now, it (hopefully) uses some portable UNIX libraries, but who knows. Linux still has a pretty small desktop market, and those who are on Linux are already used to (Libre|Open)Office or GoogleDocs. I'd like if Office came to Linux for the purposes of getting more people to potentially switch, but I don't know if it would be worth while for them financially. Adobe too. Man would it be fantastic to see Adobe add support. Same thought pops in my head: they're already running on UNIX, how much would be required to port to Linux? Probably more than I expect.
  - aruggirello 6y ago
    Porting? Who talked about porting? Why do you (and they) voluntarily ignore 20+ years of Wine? 99% of the (few) Windows programs I still routinely use work perfectly fine under Wine. I can even run my old Windows 3.1 (16 bit) stuff on 64 bit Ubuntu, which I couldn't run on Windows 10. Heck when I was a Linux newbie, I was amazed to find Windows programs that didn't support Windows XP links were nicely following Ext symlinks! Office doesn't play nice on Wine? Seriously, if Valve can get stuff working on Proton that requires DRM, DirectX etc. it doesn't look like fixing existing issues to make Office work 100% under Wine is beyond reach for Microsoft. Heck, we're talking about the same corporation capable of giving us the WSL! > Adobe too. And Autodesk too.
    - vetinari 6y ago
      Recently, I was using Mikrotik Winbox for the first time under Ubuntu. I was shocked how easy it was to make it run (apt install wine-stable, wine winbox.exe) and how well it worked.
    - TheRealDunkirk 6y ago
      > Porting? Who talked about porting? Why do you (and they) voluntarily ignore 20+ years of Wine? Indeed. I was happily using Codeweaver's Crossover product to run Office 2000 (on RedHat 6.2 with Ximian Desktop, IIC) before Microsoft realized this loophole produced a flawless experience, and then changed the binaries to purposely frustrate this solution going forward. Nothing every worked quite right after that. Eventually, Evolution had a usable Exchange integration, and OpenOffice wasn't completely useless, so I simply stopped caring.
mrits 6y ago
MS is leaving a lot of deals on the table without offering a Linux Agent. They've been using other companies to fill the gap. It's not a good look when the sales guy has to recommend a tiny startup to cover your other platforms for ATP. It's also worth noting that they encouraged startups to offer ATP support and then within a couple of years killed them by offering their own.
greedo 6y ago
Most PCI audits don't require A/V on Linux/nix types systems. The majority of assessors don't ding you if you don't deploy, and the DSS standard is pretty clear: 5.1 Deploy anti-virus software on all systems commonly affected* by malicious software (particularly personal computers and servers). Since the majority of *nix servers aren't commonly affected, there's no reason/requirement to deploy A/V. Now this doesn't mean your boss won't require it, "just to be sure."
- Beached 6y ago
  you're a fool if you think Linux systems are not commonly affected. most compliance requirements do require you to have av on Linux too. as someone in the security industry, my experience is that Linux servers are clearly more frequently affected than osx, and there are very few people left who would say osx doesn't have malware still. just because a large compiled library of code doesn't exist and isn't commonly passed around doesn't mean it's malware free or even malware light. compiled sttaic malware isn't common because it doesn't have to. rce is done on Linux systems an overwhelming majority of the time using native applications in the way they are meant to be used, just by the wrong people. (the attacker). the lack of quality security tool for the Linux environment is THE biggest concern mature security teams struggle with. Linux is the most common internet facing os platform, and I'm here to tell you, if it's internet facing, it have threat actors targeting AND affecting it. the only reason Linux hasn't surpassed windows in how frequently is it the victim of malware/attacks is because of workstations.
  - greedo 6y ago
    Not a fool, just someone with over 20 years experience, who has gone through multiple PCI audits and never once met an assessor who thought it was required. And if you're managing your servers properly, A/V is unnecessary; first there are few viruses and malware that affect *nix, second, if you can't control code deployment on your systems, you're in the wrong business. None of our systems providing Internet services are directly connected; everything is proxied/firewalled etc. If you're expecting ANY of the A/V solutions out there to protect your systems, whether they're Windows/Linux/MacOS, you're going to be sadly disappointed when you get rooted.
29athrowaway 6y ago
Microsoft is investing in cloud, and this is meant to help their cloud business. In essence, this initiative is about that, not happy people singing kumbaya. I would not install this since it talks to Microsoft servers. I don't want "telemetry" sent to them.

by cik 6y ago

TheRealDunkirk 6y ago

> If tools like this come to Linux, it'll make it significantly easier for many organizations to start complying with these mandates. You said a lot more than you probably intended. Microsoft created the Microsoft-loving, Linux-hating trade press in the 90's. Consultancies fell into line, and started pushing the theory to uncritical IT management that if you had a computer connected to the corporate network, it had to run a virus scanner. Period; full stop. Regardless of operating system. I've never met anyone in corporate IT who actually does the math, and determines whether a particular threat vector is worth the cost of the preventative measure. The philosophy in the 3 Fortune 250's I've worked for has been: if it exists, it must be purchased/used/applied. In the 90's, yes, every WINDOWS computer connected to the corporate network needed the corporate AV running on it. Linux? Mac? Not so much. Even if they managed to get compromised, the chance that they would infect a neighboring computer were very small. These odds didn't justify the expense or the hassle of needing them to slaved into the corporate AV solution, no matter how much Microsoft diverted attention away from the very special problem that Windows has always posed from a security standpoint, how much they paid the trade press to paper over it, and how much they partnered with consultancies to push that line. They didn't care about the mainframe, did they? They didn't care about the Unix workstations, either. But Linux? It was the devil. We have come full circle. Microsoft is trying their hardest to astroturf the message that WSL enables a lot of development workflows for which Windows has been a poor choice of late, and this requires them to "love Linux." So now Microsoft MUST release their Defender product for Linux, in order to be taken seriously BY THE VERY CULTURE THEY CREATED. As a guy who run Linux on the desktop for 19 years, and got my corporate IT (in the 90's) to consider Linux all the way to the point of them looking into a virus scanner for it (finding that Symantec didn't support it, and dropping the idea), the irony here is both delicious and sickening at the same time. As I keep saying, I'll believe Microsoft "loves" Linux they day they create Office and an AD client for it.

jjice 6y ago
I wonder how much work would have to go into porting Office to Linux. My first thought is that since they've had it on MacOS for years now, it (hopefully) uses some portable UNIX libraries, but who knows. Linux still has a pretty small desktop market, and those who are on Linux are already used to (Libre|Open)Office or GoogleDocs. I'd like if Office came to Linux for the purposes of getting more people to potentially switch, but I don't know if it would be worth while for them financially. Adobe too. Man would it be fantastic to see Adobe add support. Same thought pops in my head: they're already running on UNIX, how much would be required to port to Linux? Probably more than I expect.
- aruggirello 6y ago
  Porting? Who talked about porting? Why do you (and they) voluntarily ignore 20+ years of Wine? 99% of the (few) Windows programs I still routinely use work perfectly fine under Wine. I can even run my old Windows 3.1 (16 bit) stuff on 64 bit Ubuntu, which I couldn't run on Windows 10. Heck when I was a Linux newbie, I was amazed to find Windows programs that didn't support Windows XP links were nicely following Ext symlinks! Office doesn't play nice on Wine? Seriously, if Valve can get stuff working on Proton that requires DRM, DirectX etc. it doesn't look like fixing existing issues to make Office work 100% under Wine is beyond reach for Microsoft. Heck, we're talking about the same corporation capable of giving us the WSL! > Adobe too. And Autodesk too.
  - vetinari 6y ago
    Recently, I was using Mikrotik Winbox for the first time under Ubuntu. I was shocked how easy it was to make it run (apt install wine-stable, wine winbox.exe) and how well it worked.
  - TheRealDunkirk 6y ago
    > Porting? Who talked about porting? Why do you (and they) voluntarily ignore 20+ years of Wine? Indeed. I was happily using Codeweaver's Crossover product to run Office 2000 (on RedHat 6.2 with Ximian Desktop, IIC) before Microsoft realized this loophole produced a flawless experience, and then changed the binaries to purposely frustrate this solution going forward. Nothing every worked quite right after that. Eventually, Evolution had a usable Exchange integration, and OpenOffice wasn't completely useless, so I simply stopped caring.

mrits 6y ago

MS is leaving a lot of deals on the table without offering a Linux Agent. They've been using other companies to fill the gap. It's not a good look when the sales guy has to recommend a tiny startup to cover your other platforms for ATP. It's also worth noting that they encouraged startups to offer ATP support and then within a couple of years killed them by offering their own.

greedo 6y ago

Most PCI audits don't require A/V on Linux/nix types systems. The majority of assessors don't ding you if you don't deploy, and the DSS standard is pretty clear: 5.1 Deploy anti-virus software on all systems commonly affected* by malicious software (particularly personal computers and servers). Since the majority of *nix servers aren't commonly affected, there's no reason/requirement to deploy A/V. Now this doesn't mean your boss won't require it, "just to be sure."

Beached 6y ago
you're a fool if you think Linux systems are not commonly affected. most compliance requirements do require you to have av on Linux too. as someone in the security industry, my experience is that Linux servers are clearly more frequently affected than osx, and there are very few people left who would say osx doesn't have malware still. just because a large compiled library of code doesn't exist and isn't commonly passed around doesn't mean it's malware free or even malware light. compiled sttaic malware isn't common because it doesn't have to. rce is done on Linux systems an overwhelming majority of the time using native applications in the way they are meant to be used, just by the wrong people. (the attacker). the lack of quality security tool for the Linux environment is THE biggest concern mature security teams struggle with. Linux is the most common internet facing os platform, and I'm here to tell you, if it's internet facing, it have threat actors targeting AND affecting it. the only reason Linux hasn't surpassed windows in how frequently is it the victim of malware/attacks is because of workstations.
- greedo 6y ago
  Not a fool, just someone with over 20 years experience, who has gone through multiple PCI audits and never once met an assessor who thought it was required. And if you're managing your servers properly, A/V is unnecessary; first there are few viruses and malware that affect *nix, second, if you can't control code deployment on your systems, you're in the wrong business. None of our systems providing Internet services are directly connected; everything is proxied/firewalled etc. If you're expecting ANY of the A/V solutions out there to protect your systems, whether they're Windows/Linux/MacOS, you're going to be sadly disappointed when you get rooted.

29athrowaway 6y ago

Microsoft is investing in cloud, and this is meant to help their cloud business. In essence, this initiative is about that, not happy people singing kumbaya. I would not install this since it talks to Microsoft servers. I don't want "telemetry" sent to them.