Best Security: Linux or Windows

[sanderson]

There are some very well known differences between windows and linux.

But I think many would be curious to know this: "Why Linux is more secure than Windows?" Moreover, windows pull hackers towards it, I mean more vulnerable to attacks and viruses, at both server and desktop.

Do you know any reasonable reason behind this?

[kev woodman]

Depends who you ask.

If you ask a Linux/Unix buff they will tell you that:

* Unix type systems are inherently more secure than Windows because they were built for a multi-user environment so have a
proper privilege system and a hardened kernel;

* by preventing anyone except root making system-wide changes you stop people doing anything too damaging;

* that the Open Source community is more vigilant and quick to react to threats than a group of paid employees;

* Windows is now so full of old/badly-written code that it is bound to leak.

If you ask a Windows buff they will say it's because:

* millions more people use Windows so it's a more tempting target - there's no point in trying to write a trojan for a few million Linux boxes when you can write one for hundreds of millions of Windows ones;

* a lot of malware writers are part of the OS community so they don't want to pee on their own doorstep;

* Linux users tend to be more technical so they are unlikely to make the sort of basic mistakes that non-technical Windows users are.

If you ask me I'd say it's probably all of the above.

[paul]

People who vehemently disagree on Linux architecture, Linux has ability that get them to agree; blogs.zdnet.com/open-source/?p=837

[kev woodman]

I don't think that there's any real argument over which has the most secure architecture but the argument that Linux is attacked less because it is much much much less popular still holds.

In the server market there are all sorts of reasons why companies may switch to Linux but it should be remembered that MS has never had the dominance here that it enjoys in the personal computer market. The latest releases of Windows Server are much more secure than earlier releases and I think that as many security problems are caused through poor administration than are caused by inherent weaknesses in the software.

[paul]

Linux has legacy in hosting market and more likely people now started realizing the power of linux. If you are an advanced user who prefers to work in shell environment, then Linux is your choice. I am very sure it will grow to any length in future.

[kev woodman]

I'm not convinced about Linux on the desktop Paul. After all it's hardly new and despite the predictions it has never made much of an impact on the desktop market. OS X is also based on Unix and this seems to have more chance of denting MS sales of Vista.