Inside Linux: Page 5 of 17

For temporal reference, Linux is now more than 10 years old, only one year younger than Microsoft's first accepted desktop operating system and two years older than Microsoft's server OS. One can argue that Windows was based on DOS, thereby making it more mature, but we'd counter that the operating principles of Linux are based on decades-old Unix.

Feel Safe

Although security was cited by just 21 percent of our survey's respondents as a hindrance to deployment, it's a valid concern. There are, indeed, vulnerabilities, but they've typically had far less of an impact than those affecting Windows machines. That's because the security models of the two operating systems are vastly different: In Linux, it's unlikely that anything a user can install will infect the core operating system. Many of the viruses and exploits successful against Windows are unlikely to have a similar impact on a Linux system, where mail clients and browsers aren't closely integrated with the underlying operating system.

Yet many early attacks against Web servers were perpetrated against sites served by Apache via CGI modules, such as PERL. The permissions and failure to properly validate user input could offer remote access to an attacker or leave behind Trojans for easier access at a later time.

These types of attacks, for the most part, have been avoided over the years, but Linux is not invulnerable to attacks, viruses or malicious code. It simply requires that the attacker be ingenious and have a thorough knowledge of the system he or she is attacking, which can translate into more devastating results if an attack is successful. Bottom line: No operating system or software is invulnerable when it has an active network connection.