Earlier today, Mikko Hyppönen, the Chief Research Officer at F-Secure, revealed in a tweet that the most widely used Linux IRC daemon had been the recipient of a malware payload for the past several months.
This trojanized payload has been widely used and distributed over the past several months, and Ed Bott, author, columnist, and Microsoft MVP, dissected the situation here, welcoming Linux users to the scary world of malware.
Immediately however, Ed started getting flamed for his analysis of the state of Linux malware.
Why is this?
When malware is identified in Windows World, people rally round and try to defeat it.
In Linuxland, the bosses there bury their collective heads in the sand, and get this: ask their users to do the same!
Why is this?
A tale of two OSs
OS #1: whenever a vuln is suspected, detected, or located, the developer of the operating system jumps into action, trying to create a solution to remediate the problem, and help secure hundreds of millions of users around the globe.
OS #2: whenever a vuln is discovered, mostly after it has been in the wild for several months, the administrators of the OS project make light of the situation, and the horde of rabid freetard fanbois then proceed to excoriate users, always saying nothing is wrong, putting their their hundreds of thousands of users around the globe into further peril.
While it is true that OS #1, Microsoft Windows, has had more vulns over the years, it is still more secure since its manufacturer patches vulns rapidly, and is making the design of secure operating systems a priority.
On the other hand, OS #2 – actually a catchall for all Linux distros – has its advocates trolling websites trying to shoot down all talk of malware in that OS.
Folks, there is enough malware to go around.
Think I am kidding?
Check this little list here:
- August 2008: Red RHAT servers hacked
- September 2008: Phalanx 2 Trojan afflicts Linux
- November 2009: OS X gets it very own malware, OS X.Loosemaque
Well, there you have it.
Every OS that has had some windbag blame Microsoft or Windows, has joined the crowd.
Such is life today.
