Adobe (Temporarily?) Kills 64-Bit Flash For Linux

[Patrick Bartek]

--- On Mon, 6/14/10, Greg Woods <woods at ucar.edu> wrote:

> On Mon, 2010-06-14 at 08:20 -0700,
> Patrick Bartek wrote:
> 
> > In any case, I don't think the "hole" will cause much
> problems with Linux based systems.  When you read of
> the panic attacks people are having, it's usually about
> Windows systems.
> 
> Linux is vulnerable too, we should not be so complacent.
> Windows is, of
> course, always targeted first because of its
> ubiquitousness, and there
> are some design flaws in Windows (such as, the logged-in
> user often has
> too many privileges) that make it more vulnerable. But
> let's not kid
> ourselves and go around thinking we are invulnerable,
> because we're not.
> It would certainly be possible to exploit this
> vulnerability on Linux
> and do some sufficiently nasty stuff (such as turning your
> machine into
> a spam source) that wouldn't require getting root access.
> It is only a
> matter of time before the hackers turn their attention to
> Linux,
> particularly if they know that Linux users do not have an
> update path
> and are therefore likely to remain vulnerable.

Windows is also targeted because it's easier in so many ways to infect or compromise.

I'm not saying that Linux can't be infected, hacked, cracked, etc., but it's considerably harder simply because the system is designed, first and foremost, from the ground up with security in mind.  With Windows, security seems to have been always an after thought, if thought about at all.

In addition, Linux users tend to be more knowledgeable regarding the vagaries of computers and computing, and take reasonable precautions against such things.


B