

Malware is increasing, and now targeting Mac and Android mobile users











Sources: MarketWatch, AFP

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RE: Linux and malware
By Etsp on 5/24/2012 10:21:48 AM , Rating: 5
It's partly due to loyalty to the platform. Most of these virus writers and exploiters use linux as their primary OS. Not to mention, with linux being open source and usually free, there is no corporate entity "enemy" for the exploiters to focus their ire on. Rather, when they find exploiters find an issue with linux, they'll be at least tempted to report the bug.

The other part of the equation is surface area. Linux using Desktop users are a small minority, even compared to Apple users. It's just not worth their time to go after them.

Sure, lots of servers are running linux, but infecting systems without users there to help is much much harder. Especially since servers are supposed to be more locked down than desktops are.

The only way we would be able to say definitively that linux is the most secure platform of the three would be to have 33% market penetration for each platform at the desktop, and see who gets exploited more.

However, in the current environment, linux desktops are definitely the safest in terms of risk of getting infected.

RE: Linux and malware
By JediJeb on 5/25/2012 1:30:51 AM , Rating: 2
If hardware vendors would write drivers in Linux for everything then you would probably see it gain more market share. Lack of drivers is what pretty much tanked Vista when it first came out, if that can happen to the most popular OS vendor then imagine what it is doing to the little guys. The rest of Linux is very stable, it is usually a hardware driver that causes instability in any Linux setup.

As for malware,there are several pieces of malware listed for Linux. As you said though, popularity is what increases the threat rate on an OS.

