How Effective Are The World's Best Crackers' Skills Against Linux?

[The Simpleton 2]

There are a lot of skilled crackers (blackhats) in the world today who can do devastating thing s using their cracking skills. They can install malicious software on your system without your knowing and can turn your computer into a zombie/bot. This is the general assumption, right? But I was wondering how great these crackers' skills are when we're talking about cracking Linux boxes. Will their skills be as effective in Linux as they were in Windows? Linux's security system is very robust and there's a low chance of getting attacked while using Linux. So is it possible for a successful Windows cracker to crack Linux with the same speed, ease and style?

[shadowx 0]

There are two ways for a malicious hackers (crackers IMHO are those that crack passwords and encryption, not hack into systems) to attack and control a system. One is through the user. I could ask for your user/pass in a special way that persuades you to hand it over, or i can get you to download a malicious program that lets me in.The other option is to get in through a vulnerability in the OS itself, windows is particularly vulnerable to having security holes in it, some are very serious. these can be in many different forms, perhaps a default password that is well known (as in the case of the apple Iphone worms), buffer overflow exploits (sending a program so much data it spills over into another "section" of RAM and can be executed as a whole separate program) or other holes such as lack of validation of data etc....Now, if we look at linux the base of the system, and the most vital part, the kernel is well coded, there are very few vulnerabilities known in the kernel itself, those that are are very quickly patched by the community of users so as we stand today it is very stable and safe. so that leaves us with downloaded programs and their faults. In theory any program you download, even on linux, can have various holes. Linux overcomes this with permissions and a stable base kernel. Let's say i download a torrent program, there is a huge hole in it that will let a hacker get into my system and run commands. Bad times, however, even if the hacker manages to get into my system he cant do much, he cant install stuff, he cant read or write to the system areas, including the kernel. Virtually all he can do is type up word documents and save them. Even if he got in, then manually wrote a virus to delete all my stuff and then tried to run the virus it will still be constrained by the permissions. Sure, it could delete MY documents and files, but it couldnt affect the system at all.So there's little reason for the virus, hence no-one bothers to create it.That's on the assumption that they can actually get in to my system, which in itself is very difficult with linux, if not impossible.Now, on a windows system the same example could be very, very bad... Let's say there is no security software on either operating system. Now, the hacker gets into my torrent program on windows, from there he has access to everything... You know how you can install, uninstall, delete, make and run files and programs, well so can he... He can delete your windows folder with just one command:cd WINDOWSdel *.*Uhoh.... There goes windows. And it doesnt end there, there are various weaknesses in the windows system that lets them run keyloggers etc... where on linux you would probably need to enter the admins password.Linux doesnt let you run as ROOT (admin) by default, you have to specifically tell it to make you root, and only root can change the system, you, as a user cannot, which is why it is so secure. Without this perhaps linux would be much less secure, only with windows Vista has MS caught up by using the UAC, user account control, which asks for your permission to do certain things, but it's so annoying everyone just disables it...

[andresf91 0]

Don't get me wrong with what I'm going to say next, I'm a big supporter of free software, but that story we sometimes hear about crackers and hackers focusing only on Windows... I don't buy it.
I mean, check the BIG companies. Google, Yahoo!, the banks, governments... etc. Most of their servers run Unix-like systems. Not Windows. Microsoft can't make them go for Windows servers if they don't want to, because they have more power than Bill's company (except a great part of third world's governments which really depend on external software producers and can't go against the tide of monopolistic capitalist).
The BIG ones go for Unix-like servers, BSD, Solaris and Linux too. They may be really safer, but I'm sure that the most dangerous crackers and hackers are the ones that study how to break the security of those systems. If viruses and trojan bugs for them haven't been as spread as Windows', it may be due to the fact that companies/governments won't make them public their security flaws.
Yes, I know it sounds a bit crazy this theory. But think about it: if you were a cracker, who would you like to hack most? An average Windows home PC? Or a bank?
It would be ten thousands more risky, but there's always some crazy one around...

Edited November 29, 2009 by andresf91 (see edit history)

[The Simpleton 2]

Don't get me wrong with what I'm going to say next, I'm a big supporter of free software, but that story we sometimes hear about crackers and hackers focusing only on Windows... I don't buy it.I mean, check the BIG companies. Google, Yahoo!, the banks, governments... etc. Most of their servers run Unix-like systems. Not Windows. Microsoft can't make them go for Windows servers if they don't want to, because they have more power than Bill's company (except a great part of third world's governments which really depend on external software producers and can't go against the tide of monopolistic capitalist).
The BIG ones go for Unix-like servers, BSD, Solaris and Linux too. They may be really safer, but I'm sure that the most dangerous crackers and hackers are the ones that study how to break the security of those systems. If viruses and trojan bugs for them haven't been as spread as Windows', it may be due to the fact that companies/governments won't make them public their security flaws.
Yes, I know it sounds a bit crazy this theory. But think about it: if you were a cracker, who would you like to hack most? An average Windows home PC? Or a bank?
It would be ten thousands more risky, but there's always some crazy one around...

Hmm that's an interesting theory and makes a lot of sense. Now that I think about it, a lot of websites which get attacked are also on Unix-based servers. And I've seen a book recently claiming to teach the ultimate skill of Linux hacking/cracking!!! I don't know how far it is true but the thought that it is possible is indeed very scary. Well at least I know that I won't be hit for a while because I don't have a bank in my home