10.21.09
The Role of Windows Security Problems in GNU/Linux Gains
Summary: Online banking as a GNU/Linux selling point — again
JUST THE other day we mentioned how banks were becoming reason for advocacy of GNU/Linux. A couple more articles about the subject have just been published:
• Windows unsafe for online banking? Shopping?
The most prominent example of this is The Washington Post’s security columnist, Brian Krebs. Krebs recently recommended that after interviewing “dozens of victim companies that lost anywhere from $10,000 to $500,000 dollars because of a single malware infection,” he’s now recommending that, “commercial online banking customers consider accessing their accounts solely from non-Windows systems.”
As Krebs points out, he’s not the only one. The Financial Services Information Sharing and Analysis Center, an online financial-sector security forum recommends business users, “”carry out all online banking activity from a standalone, hardened, and locked-down computer from which e-mail and Web browsing is not possible.”
• Teeth-Gnashing and Tongue-Lashing Over Desktop Linux Foot-Shooting
“Even if the Windows installation on the underlying hard drive is completely corrupted with a keystroke-logging virus or Trojan, that malware can’t capture the victim’s banking credentials if that user only transmits his or her credentials after booting up into one of these Live CDs,” Krebs explained.
The community’s reaction? More than 400 comments on Slashdot just a few days later, not to mention discussions on OStatic, as well as on LXer and beyond.
There is nothing wrong with advocating the use of GNU/Linux on a comparative basis. To say nothing about the competitors is not always effective. People do not understand Freedom so well, especially in a society that trains people to misunderstand “freedom”. So last night I convinced a friend of mine to use GNU/Linux based on the promise that it would eliminate the security issues so common under Windows. █
“I am convinced we have to use Windows – this is the one thing they don’t have. We have to be competitive with features, but we need something more — Windows integration.”
–Jim Allchin, President of Platforms & Services Division at Microsoft
