McAfee knocks Microsoft over Vista roadblocks

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It will never be 1/100th as bad as it is now

Phishing attacks are OS agnostic. If I email you a linux binary, it prompts for root's password and you give it to me, I can do as I please with your OS. There are millions of Windows users today who would, I mean, cmon, I NEED that screensaver.

Now, phishing is a one step (and in many cases a no user step required) operation. On Linux, it is at least three step
1) Download the file (nothing runs automatically in email)
2) Change the file to give it execute permisison
3) Execute it and then supply root's password.

It is, however, possible, and McAfee could/will be useful there once Linux is mainstream.

As for security exploits, they can also be useful there. Now, unlike some OSs where exploits have been open for years and the raw number of critical exploits is completely out of control, Open Source exploits are patched quickly and are forevermore, a don't care. HOWEVER, there will be millions of Windows users again who ignore the flashing red update button. MacAfee can protect these users too.

The above said, it can never and will never be 1/100th as bad as a current mass of Xp and Pre-XP machines out there in the internet. I have google mail for my blog. I get 25 to 1 spam to real email, most from zombied machines.

There is a reason why Vista is moving towards a real user access control, unfortunatly, instead of imbedding it into the low level filesystem with rock solid permission control, they wrote a "protection layer". It will help, but just can't be as secure as file level permission levels. They should have done it right, instead of rule's based, but that's another topic.

So, MacAfee may well be useful in LinuxLand when it goes mainstream. Will it be beyond critical like it is today for even moderatly knowledgeable users, not in the slightest.

TripleII

Posted by: TripleII   Posted on: 10/02/06 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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