[clug] My windows box got rooted last week... how at risk is Linux?

Jacinta Richardson jarich at perltraining.com.au
Wed Jun 11 10:09:02 GMT 2008


jhock wrote:

> There are regular updates from UBUNTU central regarding security issues.
> I have had no problems so far but I will take the advice of all the
> other answers regarding minimising security problems.

On the assumption that you don't know a lot about administering your Ubuntu
machine, and imagining that you've installed a desktop version and haven't also
installed things like a web server etc, then the best and easiest things you can
do to keep your machine behaving are:

	* Have good enough passwords (not dictionary words, preferably 7+
	  characters long, including upper case, lower case, digits and
	  punctuation eg:  Th1$is0K (this is ok))

	* Install updates as soon as possible after the update icon in the top
	  right indicates they're available.

The updates should keep packages the OS knows about as secure as the maintainers
can.  Good passwords should give you a little more physical security as well as
removing an avenue for someone who's gained some access to your machine to gain
further access.

Just by not using IE you've reduced your exposure to a lot of the nasties out
there.  I've lost track of times I've visited friends of the family and ended up
installing AdAware, ClamAV and a few other things in order to remove the
bazillion of pop ups, pop unders, home and search page hi-jackers, that Cool Web
Kit crap and more.  Mostly because *someone* in the house decided to install
some downloaded games or visit some unsavory websites....  Some of them even let
me install Firefox as an alternative too.  ;)

	J

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