Re: Which OS is more secure ? -- MIDRANGE-L

Which OS is more secure ?  While it might be interesting to debate the
point, this is really just a sideshow and not the main event.  The vast
majority of security problems come from applications and administrators that
do not correctly specify, monitor and use security.  You can have the most
secure OS in the world, and it may not matter one whit because you don't use
good security practices day to day.  The argument of which OS is more secure
presupposes that security is something you can buy from the factory, and
then just happily live under.

If you want my opinion (OK, let's not have everyone yell "No!" at once),
Security is not really a noun, it's a verb.  You don't "have" security, you
"do" it.

So which OS is more secure?  In practice it doesn't really matter.  What the
Sysadm does the day after he/she installs the OS is far more important than
what happened at the software factory.

IMHO

jte

--
John Earl
www.powertechgroup.com  john.earl@powertechgroup.com
The Powertech Group Inc. Seattle, Washington
Where the Security Experts Live!

Phone: +1-253-872-7788 (optional)
Fax:   +1-253-872-7904 (optional)
--
----- Original Message -----
From: "Adam Lang" <aalang@rutgersinsurance.com>
To: <midrange-l@midrange.com>
Sent: Monday, February 04, 2002 10:36 AM
Subject: Re: Which OS is more secure ?


> These numbers are bogus and the site says so itself.
>
> Linux gets bunched with the server apps (sendmail, pop, ftp, postfix,
> apache, etc.) that people use it with, whereas NT is just tested agaisnt
NT.
> Hell, they even said they excluded IE security breaches!
>
> So yes, Micriosoft Windows NT has fewer security breaches than ALL the
Open
> Source software out there.
>
> They didn't even list which server apps they included in the Linux
numbers.
>
> Also of note is how fast a security flaw is fixed.  Quickly due to the
open
> source philosophy or after somwthing has been actively exploited, as in MS
a
> lot of the time.
>
> Adam Lang
> Systems Engineer
> Rutgers Casualty Insurance Company
> http://www.rutgersinsurance.com
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Wills, Mike N. (TC)" <MNWills@taylorcorp.com>
> To: <midrange-l@midrange.com>
> Sent: Monday, February 04, 2002 1:20 PM
> Subject: RE: Which OS is more secure ?
>
>
> > I will take a neutral stand point here. I believe that both Windows and
> > Linux are close to being the same for security (from the NT standpoint
NOT
> > 9x/ME), if you know how to do it. Bugs? As long as the programmers are
> > human, there will be bugs. The Windows OS tends to get hacked more than
> > Linux, but also how many of these hackings are by "script-kiddies" vs.
> true
> > hackers or crackers. Many times there already is a fix for the
> vulnerability
> > that the hacker found, it just wasn't applied by the admin (like
CodeRed,
> > Minda, etc.).
> >
> > Mike
>
>
>
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