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Linux being secure is a common misconception
- bobse 3y ago[dead]
- indymike 3y agoThis line, to me, caused me to become much more critical of the article: "such as Windows, which is leaning heavily towards Rust, a memory safe language,"
- nick__m 3y agoBut Microsoft is currently rewriting major part of windows in rust. https://www.theregister.com/2023/04/27/microsoft_windows_rust/ https://www.theregister.com/2023/04/27/microsoft_windows_rus...
- pjmlp 3y agoMicrosoft has recently announced 10 million dollar investment into engineering efforts to use Rust as default systems language on Azure, alongside 1 million for the Rust foundation. Azure runs on Windows.
- JB_Dev 3y agoE.g. https://x.com/markrussinovich/status/1656416376125538304?s=46&t=iCrJJZTZvFqB7m0y0aoOLg https://x.com/markrussinovich/status/1656416376125538304?s=4...
- 1970-01-01 3y agoLinux being insecure is also a misconception, because its so damn fragmented. Only when a Linux flavor matures does it become a target for hackers.
- schmorptron 3y agosimilar to the old memes of windows 8 being malware proof because it's incompatible with most of it?
- rolph 3y agoso should we all switch to whonix ?
- ramshanker 3y ago“I am secure”, ohh well “Xyz is secure”, is a common misconception. Anyone remember the old saying “ given enough time and tools, all locks are broken”.
- shzhdbi09gv8ioi 3y agoPeople used to claim MacOS was so secure you didn't need antivirus. Turns out it was not very popular.
- complex_pi 3y agoThe macs I support in my private circle run very well without an antivirus. It is anecdata of course but about 15 years of it for several "lambda" users.
- gjsman-1000 3y agoWell… I mean, if you consider iOS an operating system, “so secure it doesn’t antivirus” is true for 99.9% of people. I have personally never used antivirus on Mac. I’ve scanned once or twice with Malwarebytes when something weird was occurring but there was never anything.
- asylteltine 3y agoIt is true. I don’t know a single person who runs any kind of antivirus on a mac and I’ve never heard of anyone getting a virus. Does it happen? Sure, there are 8 billion people in the world. Let’s not pretend mac needs an antivirus running like windows does.
- TrueDuality 3y agoiOS being secure is also a common misconception. A bit of an extreme example but that is a meaningful problem as opposed to Linux on the Desktop cases. The problems pointed out in this post are almost all around usability as Linux on Desktop. The author admits the tools exist but are hard to use in most of the cases. Where features are missing its a misunderstanding of the Linux world. A lot of these protections either live under different names outside of the Windows world and the ones that aren't don't exist because Linux protects things in a different less vendor-lock-in way. This is very apparent in the virtual machine section which are about protecting host kernel primitives from the VM... Linux doesn't expose _any_ host kernel primitives to the VM. The closest is narrow drivers, properly sandboxed and isolated in userspace, that are minimal and have their own security guarantees. eBPF is far from a dangerous feature, C is only a dangerous language when that danger isn't managed, and the Linux kernel is top-of-class for managing those features, there is the same root boundary issue in Windows and is a deep source of security problems (root on Linux CAN be restricted through both seccomp and SELinux policies unlike SYSTEM). Things could be better for sure in the Linux world, but pretty much everything besides secure defaults here requires a level of effort or access to attack that requires full compromise of the machine already. There is much lower hanging fruit that we need to clean up and the funny thing about Linux is that it trends hard toward security and quality over time. You just have to look at time to fix patches for security vulnerabilities, not just in the kernel but in any packages maintained by security distributions. The author calls out not getting patches back-ported, without looking into the patches that don't get back-ported. RHEL won't backport fixes for features that aren't compiled in for example. There was a post earlier this week about the CVSS scores being different between NVD and RHEL's bug trackers... It was because the networking functionality of that package wasn't compiled in so there was no possibility of remote execution .
- theevilsharpie 3y ago(2022)
- devit 3y agoWell, the biggest advantages of Linux are that the OS vendor is not itself malicious (in particular, does not collect telemetry, push advertisements or attempt to restrict your use of the system like Microsoft and Apple do), the OS is relatively unpopular and thus not a profitable target for malware directed to end-users, and it is flexible and customizable. You need to use VM-based isolation to have good security with Linux beyond that (i.e. use Qubes or a similar alternative).
- tw04 3y ago>Well, the biggest advantages of Linux are that the OS vendor is not itself malicious (in particular, does not collect telemetry, push advertisements or attempt to restrict your use of the system like Microsoft and Apple do) Except they do: https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2022/10/ubuntu-pro-terminal-ad https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2022/10/ubuntu-pro-terminal-ad https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/10/privacy-ubuntu-1210-amazon-ads-and-data-leaks https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/10/privacy-ubuntu-1210-am...
- devit 3y agoThat is easily solved by using Debian instead of Ubuntu.
- askonomm 3y agoSo then what you meant to say was that _some_ Linux distros are not malicious.
- galleywest200 3y agoThe distributions maybe, but the producers of the Linux kernel are not.
- tw04 3y agoI doubt the kernel maintainers of Windows or MacOS are involved in the advertisements inserted into the GUI of either OS.
- Timber-6539 3y agoFlatpaks don't necessarily aim to sandbox applications by default. They just give you the platform to DIY in the easiest way possible, esp when coupled with Flatseal. If we really want to criticize Flatpaks for allowing access to /home or x11 for compatibility reasons, then we should do the same to traditional applications which are packaged non-sandboxed with the same permissions anyways. And before you say that this is an issue because of unknown contributors to popular Flatpak applications, verified apps from the project owners themselves ship with these same "express" permissions. As far as I am concerned, no general purpose OS will ever come hardened to max defaults; which seems to be the standard applied for security here.
- wly_cdgr 3y agoIt is easy for ugly people to be chaste, if you know what I mean
- timetraveller26 3y agoLinux may not be totally secure but it is securest of all the viable options.
- neilalexander 3y agoDepends on your definition of "secure" of course.
- hollerith 3y agoNo, Windows, MacOS, iOS, Android and ChromeOS are all much more secure.
- grayhatter 3y agoAndroid and chromeos are Linux based, so it's very interesting that 2 of your 4 most secure operating systems are linux. But this is a perfect example of how the premise itself is fundemntally clickbait. The problem of insecurity is unrelated to Linux, but the execution and privilege model of userspace.
- ogogmad 3y agoFor that reason, TFA said Desktop Linux, in order to avoid "pedanticism [sic]".
- grayhatter 3y agoexcept chromeos is also desktop linux... unless desktop has a different definition than the one I know?
- pjmlp 3y agoAndroid and ChromeOS use the Linux kernel, they aren't GNU/Linux, as the termux folks are certainly aware.
- hollerith 3y agoI meant that Linux-based systems other than Android, ChromeOS and Qubes are the least secure of the common OS options.
- kakaz 3y agoIs Microsoft founding FUD campaigns again?
- karmakurtisaani 3y agoOr the usual case of "My OS is tracking me and showing me ads, but you know, Linux is not perfect either."
- cal85 3y ago> Due to inevitable pedanticism Pedantry ;)
- betaby 3y agoMeh! From the article "In macOS, all applications require user consent before accessing sensitive data"." Well and once given have access to all "Files and folders Note: Includes: Desktop, Documents, Downloads, network volumes, and removable volumes", absolutely in a same way as in Linux. Additionally when installing packets in Linux I would say you give permissions by answering 'yes' to apt/dnf. Such small nuances between MacOS and Linux are not important. Additionally author ignores the fact SELinux may provide protection from accessing random files by random app.
- upofadown 3y agoSometimes things are secure for no particular reason. Something might not do the things you think are important for security but that does not mean that that thing is insecure. There are almost an infinite number of things you can do in the name of security. The failure to do those thing is not evidence of a problem. So if you want to show that Linux is insecure you have to directly show that it is.
- hollerith 3y agoI think the amount of pain inflicted on the internet by security holes in IoT devices (most of which run Linux) goes a long way to show that Linux is not secure enough.
- xorcist 3y agoThat anything is not completely secure is a truism. In what way? Compared to what? Linux is not as secure as some research-level operating systems, but that comparison is not very useful for most people. Among mainstream operating systems, Linux contains comparably few surprises. There's also the fact that, like with much of open source, when the developer's interest align with yours the tools get more effective. Contrary to what you read on the Internet, most actors in the Linux ecosystem take security seriously. That the article references Spengler and Micay says a lot. That's like referencing the UNIX Hater's Handbook. That handbook was mostly right, but also not very practical. But over time it has done more for unix than most other texts, because it was mostly read by unix developers. The situation with these guys is mostly the same. A lot of the ideas voiced by them has been the basis for new features, just not in the form they were made originally.
- asylteltine 3y agoCompared to Mac OS, Linux is hardly secure, at least without significant knowledge and customization that almost every user has no understanding of.
- Veserv 3y agoCompared to a standard economically motivated criminal hacking business that will certainly attack any commercial deployment (i.e. the default threat model). Security exists relative to your attackers, not compared to other security solutions. A cardboard box is a thousand times more resistant to penetration than a paper box, but neither is adequate to protect jewelry. For software security, a trivial amount of resources like a mere 3 FTEs and 1 elapsed year will almost certainly defeat any Linux deployment. It will also almost certainly defeat any Windows, Mac, BSD, VMWare, iOS, Android, or any other commercial OS deployment. But, just because everyone only knows how to make cardboard boxes does not make any of them secure. And again, even if everybody else only knows how to make paper boxes, it does not make the cardboard box adequate. This is the case even if nobody in the entire world can do it; a cardboard box does not meet the minimum specifications, period.
- Xeamek 3y agoYou literally have a comparison in the article, which lists security features from both windows and Mac that improve safety in different ways, and that linux lacks equivalents of.
- Thaxll 3y ago"Most programs on Linux are written in memory unsafe languages, such as C or C++" ?
- doubled112 3y ago"Most programs are written in memory unsafe languages, such as C or C++" Does that fix it for them?
- asylteltine 3y agoI mean both are true kind of, but a ton of Mac and iOS stuff is written with swift…
- calamari4065 3y agoDoes the author really not understand what memory unsafe means?
- tester756 3y agoWhat do you mean? it is right
- MaxBarraclough 3y agoIt would be a reasonable point, if it were backed up by hard numbers. Linux and Windows both offer C++ as a first-class option for graphical desktop applications. They also both offer first-class safe alternatives. Windows has .Net. Linux has, say, Python bindings for Qt and for GTK. It could be that Linux desktop applications are more often written in unsafe languages, but it's not self-evident.
- asylteltine 3y agoMac OS and iOS are beyond a doubt the most secure operating systems. I’m not saying they are bulletproof, but are definitely the most secure compared to anything on the market. Linux desktop is laughably insecure, as much as I love it. Windows? I guess with hardware backed bitlocker(apparently not even the default lmao) is alright.
- SamuelAdams 3y agoPeople also assume all defaults are “safe”, and that the out of the box configuration does not need to be reviewed. For example, I just installed Fedora Ashai Linux last night and discovered that the sshd daemon is listening on port 22 by default. Not sure if there was an easy to guess password for that, but it was not mentioned at all in the installer and could have been a big problem if I had not caught it.
- Anthony-G 3y ago> discovered that the sshd daemon is listening on port 22 by default Your comment confused me and I had to read it more than once. I’d expect the SSH service to default to listening on the default port and I’d be annoyed if a distribution had configured the sshd daemon to default to listening to a port other than 22. I’m guessing that your main problem with the distribution is that the SSH service was automatically enabled in the first place (without your knowledge).
- SamuelAdams 3y agoYes, sorry you are right. My main gripe is that the sshd service was enabled and running by default.
- mid-kid 3y agoThere's no worse way to be right than being technically right. Most of these points are essentially the state of the art of desktop operating systems, or pure speculation, and the fact that they aren't perfect or widely used yet is usually because of tradeoffs that must be made in favor of usability.
- butz 3y agoI agree that "Linux" is not secure, but there must be at least a few Linux distributions that are made as secure as they can be.
- PrimeMcFly 3y agoWith the kernels devs attitudes toward security vulns, of course it is. Then again there is stuff like SELinux available which balances things out.
- paravirtualized 3y agoIt's highly unlikely that any operating system can be as secure as Qubes OS[1], simply by considering the model itself. Especially if using Whonix[2] VMs to browse the internet. It is based on GNU/Linux and Xen. Each piece of software can be separated into its own VM. It uses read only templates for the root filesystem, making it difficult for malware to persist. Templates have no access to networking or hardware making it difficult for them to be compromised, AppVMs where you run software can be treated as throwaway and be trivially destroyed after each use. Dom0 has no access to networking, USB devices and runs no software. Total compromise would require a hypervisor escape. It is designed with the assumption that you will be owned start to finish. [1]: https://www.qubes-os.org/ https://www.qubes-os.org/ [2]: https://www.whonix.org/wiki/Qubes https://www.whonix.org/wiki/Qubes
- MongoTheMad 3y agoAm I missing something? Isn't SELinux supposed to mitigate/stop the attacks described?
- rascul 3y agoMight be that none of that really matters. Figure out what security goals you want to meet for your use case and take the necessary steps to get there.
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 3y agoThe article mentions reducing attack surface several times (in the context of VMs, sandboxing, etc.) but it never considers the ability to reduce the surface of the entire OS (no VMs, sandboxes, etc.). What are other OS that make shrinking the size of the entire OS even easier. Do they exist.
- tpoacher 3y agoPlacing Flatpak as the top argument on that list to demonstrate insecurity for linux more generally, is a bit like saying your house is insecure if you use a padlock instead of a proper lock, so you shouldn't own a house more generally.
- hackeraccount 3y agoI think the two important statements which I think almost everyone would agree with are: 1 - against a resourceful enough opponent a networked OS being used by a human is (probably) never secure. 2 - the biggest insecurity in any OS is the person running it 3 - a knowledgeable person can use / secure any OS to a degree that will avoid 99.99% of the vulnerabilities (excepting point 1) I like Linux, I tend to think that when I want to increase security on a Linux system the tools are there and work. That said I'm sure that same thing can be said for OSX and Windows. I do tend suspect that the best of the bunch - out of the box, naive user - is probably IOS. Linux is probably a close second because that naive user will find it harder to create problems and it's just a smaller target because of smaller installed base (and there's a little more heterogeneity among the distributions)