Linux uncrackable...?

[jdow]

On 2012/09/02 23:33, Tim wrote:
> On Sun, 2012-09-02 at 21:35 -0700, jdow wrote:
>> I have a "thing" about people who say you don't need an AV or other
>> defense with Linux, "It's safe." That's been a mantra of the know
>> nothings for nearly 20 years now.
>
> The thing is, that anti-virus is always after-the-fact.  The damage has
> been done, and it's too late for those who were hit.  The Windows
> mentality of heavily relying on anti-virus (and other anti-stuff),
> rather than fixing the real problem, is a significant error.  It's a
> poor solution.
>
> Fortunately, the Linux camp has taken the attitude that if there's a
> flaw in something, then fix it.  And if hundreds of other packages
> suddenly stop working because you fixed Samba, or whatever else, then
> that was their problem to fix their own errors.  Rather than let the
> original error stay for the sake of everyone else's convenience.
>
> I don't buy the argument that Linux has fared better in this malcontent
> war because it is a small target.  To my mind, the more sensible system
> design, and the repairing of mistakes, has a lot more to do with it.

The most important part of AV on any platform is ingress prevention.
That would include scanning data that comes into the machine over
HTTP or email protocols. AV machine scanning is "sorta nice" but as
you observe is palliative not preventive.

{^_^}