Profit vs. vandalism in security attacks

Referencing: Attracting Attackers: Windows vs. Unix

Paul Murphy's Linux Insider article points out a major difference between Windows security attacks and Unix/Linux: Windows usually has a profit motive behind it while Unix/Linux usually doesn't. He also notes:

The bottom-line difference is that essentially all
Unix attacks currently considered likely to succeed
require legal access, while those on Windows uniformly
don't.
 

It is true (and Paul hints at this) that there may be opportunistic Unix attacks now and then. You have to wonder how many of the incidents like BJ's credit card losses were specifically targeted: was it "let's crack BJ's no matter what OS they run" or was it "Hmm, here's someone running something with a weakness I can exploit". I suspect it's much more of the latter, and of course that usually means Windows.

The attitude that it's "just popularity" just took a well deserved hit from this article.

Got something to add? Send me email.

More Articles by Tony Lawrence

Find me on Google+

© 2012-06-15 Tony Lawrence

---

Printer Friendly Version

Site map     |      Disclaimer

Profit vs. vandalism in security attacks Copyright © August 2004 Tony Lawrence

Have you tried Searching this site?

Support Rates

This is a Unix/Linux resource website. It contains technical articles about Unix, Linux and general computing related subjects, opinion, news, help files, how-to's, tutorials and more.

Contact us

Printer Friendly Version