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Background Information:Tux - This Penguin represents Linux -> Linus Torvalds - Is the man who developed the original Linux Kernel in 1992 WAN - Wide Area Network (Internet) Client - Program that connects to a server Server - Program or computer that "serves" data to clients DDoS - Distributed Denial of Service attack is the flooding of a server with traffic that overloads it so that it cannot accept any new traffic IP Address - Unique identifying "address" of your computer or network to the internet Spyware - Malicious software that is downloaded to a computer (by "request") that can systematically send your personal information to a third party Adware - Spyware that tracks your purchases and browsing habits to deliver popups and other ads to your personal system Malware - The original "viruses" are contained in this category. When they're on your system, you will NOT know it Trickware - If you ever get a popup window that looks like "My Computer" or anything that looks like an antivirus program that you've never seen before, but says that you have X number of viruses on your system and, "Click Here to remove the threats to your system!" You have trickware. This is dangerous! |
What's Really Going On...Security is rapidly becoming a problem with computers that are connected to the internet. Which these days, make up about 99% of computers in the world. If you have a wireless network at home then you have the first line of defense in protecting against hackers; a router. A router handles the basic seperation of your individual computers from the internet. If you ever log into your router through your local network and find a check box that says, "block anonymous WAN requests," You definitely want that box checked. The problem is that Windows systems can "ask" for malicious traffic and then it's no longer considered to be anonymous requests. This malicious traffic can come in many forms. One form is the botnet; this is where a hacker, or group of hackers, can use your computer along with many others in a DDoS attack. While this doesn't normally pose a large threat to your personal privacy, it's still a very real security risk and may slow down your system performance. The next level of a potential threat to your system is adware. While this is still not a major threat in terms of identity theft, it can quickly become one because it opens more channels into your computer. And the real actions of the adware can be altered at any time by the person or persons that developed it. Now we come to "Trickware!" This is one of the largest growing threats to Windows systems to date. This is a Trojan Horse that appears to be an anti-virus software and tells you that you have anywhere from 10 to 100,000 infections on your system. The truth however is that the only infection is the "anti-virus" program its self. How can Linux Help? By design, Linux is a multi-user, permissions based system. What that means is that each user only has disk access permission to their own files. Any software that runs under one user account does not have access to files outside of that user account either. Most Windows infections occur because the default user account configuration for Windows is to have administrator privileges. Linux on the other hand will not allow an entire desktop environment to be loaded with administrator or "root" privileges. Linux is also unknown to mainstream computing. With Windows being the most widely used operating system (roughly 90% of computers use it), it is also the most widely targeted system for malware. But with the design of Linux, targeting it would be almost a completely futile attempt. Anti-virus software is a must on Windows systems and there is very little anti-virus software developed for Linux. There is a program called ClamAV, but it's mostly used to scan Windows filesystems outside of the Windows environment. Another aspect of Linux that makes it much more secure is the fact that most of the developement is done by so-called "hackers" on a not-for-profit basis. Yes, Linux is the operating system used and developed by the large community of "hackers!" These are the people that know all of the exploits used by other hackers, so they develop fixes for their own systems and submit them to the repositories to be previewed and checked by the lead developers. Once the fixes have been reviewed and pass security checks, they are then packaged and sent out to all systems as security updates. I'm sure you've seen Windows Update, Linux also has an update manager but once you start using it, you'll notice more updates than Windows has. This is because the Linux operating system is developed by many more people than the few who share in Microsoft's profits. Linux will also run on systems with fewer resources. It's a light-weight in terms of occupying disk space and using system memory. When you first try it out, you may get a sensation of an older system, but I promise you that it's a step forward in terms of security, flexibility, and stability. No more blue screens that say Fatal Exception Error! Or, System has been shut down to avoid corruption! From personal experience, I've seen a computer that couldn't run a fresh install of Windows XP for more than 15 minutes without freezing; after installing Ubuntu Linux on the same system, it ran for 6 months without being shut down. I have seen first hand, the difference in stability that you have with Linux. If you'd like to try Linux, you can go to http://ubuntu.com/download and download the iso file. Then you need to burn the image to a CD and boot from it. You can try it out without ever installing it on your system though it won't run to it's full speed and potential until you do install it to the hard disk. You can also boot it from a flash drive and it will run a little faster than it will from the CD. If you would like to try Linux but are having trouble figuring out how to do so, send an email to linuxbox@compunerd.us and we'll be happy to help you. |
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