Posted by: Anonymous Coward
on January 28, 2003 05:13 AM
"Windows is the target of many more attacks because of the huge installed base."
I'm afraid you are wrong here. Whilst Linux may not have as large an install base, the various UNIXes do. UNIX has a reputation for security and stability for a reason. Plus, Apache is running on twice as many machines as IIS (source: <A HREF="http://www.netcraft.com/survey/">Netcraft Survey</a netcraft.com>), but IIS has far more intrusions.
"An experienced Linux sysadmin can [do so much more to lock down a Unix-based operating system], while an experienced Windows sysadmin can do much more to lock down a Windows installation than a Linux installation."
That's true. But the point the author was making is regardless of the expertise of the sysadmin, the maximum amount of "locked-downed-ness" achievable on a Windows system is less than that of a Linux system. For example, it is not uncommon for a UNIX bastion host to function without a usable shell executable from the webserver [the webserver runs in a chrooted environment]. Can you imagine a Windows machine without cmd.exe?
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Re:Jay Beale's comments
Posted by: Anonymous Coward on January 28, 2003 05:13 AMI'm afraid you are wrong here. Whilst Linux may not have as large an install base, the various UNIXes do. UNIX has a reputation for security and stability for a reason. Plus, Apache is running on twice as many machines as IIS (source: <A HREF="http://www.netcraft.com/survey/">Netcraft Survey</a netcraft.com>), but IIS has far more intrusions.
That's true. But the point the author was making is regardless of the expertise of the sysadmin, the maximum amount of "locked-downed-ness" achievable on a Windows system is less than that of a Linux system. For example, it is not uncommon for a UNIX bastion host to function without a usable shell executable from the webserver [the webserver runs in a chrooted environment]. Can you imagine a Windows machine without cmd.exe?
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