A secure operating system?
Posted by on March 24, 2008
It’s becoming quite common to see OS X or different versions of GNU/Linux being marketed and recommended as secure operating systems. While this might be a valid point I sometimes wish people would be somewhat more careful about the way they talk regarding security.
The statement which concerns me the most is when people say that there hardly exist any viruses for OS X or GNU/Linux. This is technically true, but still somewhat misleading since it doesn’t take into account trojans and other kind of malicious software, or what’s to come. When it comes to writing trojans for example, different operating systems are basically equally vulnerable. How is the computer to know what a program is actually supposed to do? How is the computer to distinguish between when you actually want to run a certain program and when you have been tricked into running it?
All to often do I hear people who have recently started using one of above mentioned operating systems talk about their computer as if it’s pretty much totally secure and invincible. Equally often can you see how these people, while looking for support in web forums, download software from unknown sources based on the recommendations of complete strangers. This worries me because, like I wrote earlier, GNU/Linux and OS X are equally vulnerable as any other operating system when you yourself have decided to download and install a piece of software. So far, said operating systems might not be a big target for people who write malicious software, but I ‘ve got a feeling it’s only a matter of time before that changes. When that happens I’m afraid a lot of users will run into trouble simply because they’ve gotten the wrong impression of what the operating system can, and should, protect them from.
My point is that while it’s certainly important to choose a secure operating system it’s even more important to use it safely. Can we please try to remind new users of that?
