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The Forum > Article Comments > The challenges of cyber-security > Comments

The challenges of cyber-security : Comments

By Keith Suter, published 17/5/2017

Tragically a momentum builds up and people feel that they cannot swim against the tide, for example, people are being forced into online banking.

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While the news and prospects are terrible, it does introduce a glimpse of hope, that perhaps such unsolvable security vulnerabilities will finally bring an end to, or at least slow down, this mad proliferation of digital devices.

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Dear Bazz,

There actually were malware attacks on Linux some years ago, exploiting a vulnerability, including one in the "xinetd" service (which normally runs only on servers). My computer was also infected, but fortunately I noticed the attack and stopped it on time - I heard my disk working hard when I didn't issue any instruction that required the disk, so I ran "ps", found the culprit that was copying files in order to later encrypt them, so I checked exactly what it was doing, killed that process and its parents, then found and removed the files that started it, all before any actual damage was done.

The advantage of Linux, is that it does exactly what you ask it to do, no more and no less, rather than run what the company that sold you the operating-system wants. In other words, there is much less background noise and you also have much finer access and control over what is being run. The downside, is that you need to know what you are doing and run what you want manually.

Untrained people cannot use Linux, but ordinary people in the street who do not need it for their work, should not be using computers in the first place - computers are professional tools and should not be handled by lay-people who only seek entertainment, vanity and to escape from real life on the physical plane into some drug-induced virtual existence.
Posted by Yuyutsu, Wednesday, 17 May 2017 11:00:48 PM
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Philip S: You say "Like the first Microsoft has so many more users than Linux so which one would you hack?". I'm not so certain that that is correct.

Do you realise that the Android Operating System is Linux based? There are 100's of millions if not a billion or more more mobile phones running Android.

But its not only just found in Android phones: my smart TV uses Linux, so does my printer, my Android tablet and also my broadband router (I also had an e-reader that ran Linux). All of these devices of mine connect to the Internet (directly or indirectly) and are thus exposed to potential hacking.

So, contrary to what you said, because it is used in so many devices and appliances Linux is very common in households and has lots of users. In many of these cases there is very good incentive for hackers to hack these systems for ransom-ware, eg: think about how much ransom people would you be prepared to pay to unlock a phone's data or how much they could be blackmailed for if the hacker downloaded data such as photos of a compromising/personal nature.

But even outside of households it is common in business and industry-- for example this post most probably bounced through a computer running Linux on its way from me to you because Linux is well represented in the hardware infrastructure that the Internet runs on. There are plenty of targets for ransom-ware here.

However, where Linux is not typically found is in desktops/laptops- which is what most people think is what a computer is when you talk about what OSes are commonly found on computers. The majority of folk don't realise just how many computers they really have in their homes besides the desktop- eg: there are computers in their cars, entertainment equipment, white-goods, gym equipment, security and alarms, etc., etc, etc.... Most of these computers will have an operating system.
Posted by thinkabit, Thursday, 18 May 2017 12:44:39 AM
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Well first up I think it's you lot from the CFR which are dangerous to society.

So what are you trying to sell me here? Driverless cars?
No, I don't want anyone to be able to potentially remotely hack my car.
I want to drive it myself, I don't need your computer to drive, I earned my license fair and square.
I want some big heavy tank that will ram those driverless cars out of my way when they go haywire leaving me safe from your stupid hackable computer programs.

Unemployment. Lost Jobs...
This is like the biggest bullcrap story played on the world.
Stop giving people money, and give them a job instead.
'Socialist Base Level Employment' model, Double Dole for anyone anyone who wants to work.
Remove the 'I can't get a job excuse', 'create a culture of employment within the unemployed', and stop them from being idle too long in the first place to mess their lives up.
Find something for them to do. Simple.

"No one evidently thought about how vulnerable the Internet could be from people with malicious motives."

Mate I really don't like all these lies, WannaCry used NSA's tools.
Therefore it was really intelligence agencies who have malicious motives.
And the public who've paid the price.

My guess is that once all the back doors were exposed they'd need everyone to download a new 'patch' to close the known backdoors and open new ones so intelligence agencies can still access everyones computers.

I can simply hold the ignorant view 'the whole world is full of crap' and I'm probably right just as often as I'm not.
Because it's all just theatre to sell an agenda whichever that may be at the time.
Nothing more nothing less, it is what it is.

A battle for the minds of the useful idiots.
Posted by Armchair Critic, Thursday, 18 May 2017 1:14:54 AM
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thinkabit - If you read the question that was asked it states "computer security" Although a mobile phone could be technically classed as one, but it is not for my answer.

As for the rest of your comments I will just direct you to the release of shadow toolkit 2017 the release of the NSA hacking tools all of what you say are linux based are easily hackable from your phone to your television etc.

Ransomware is about locking people out of their files on computers to get money, WHEN there is as much sensitive data and the phone completely could disrupt a person livelihood as a computer can come back and tell me I am wrong.
Posted by Philip S, Thursday, 18 May 2017 1:31:23 AM
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Philip S, certainly hackers will aim at the more populous target.
Or perhaps the easiest target.
I am told that perhaps a majority of web sites, there seems to be no
statistics, use Linux web servers.

Yuyutsu said; Untrained people cannot use Linux.
I disagree, it has all the facilities that Windows has, Firefox for
browsing and a selection of other browsers, two or three emailers
presentation, spreadsheets etc etc etc and thousands of other programs
all for free.

It does not suffer from all those drop in adverts that windows users
have to put up with. I would never go back to the microsoft product.

I think that its relative immunity to hacking is probably due to
the permissions system. It could be one thing to get a malicious
program into the memory but impossible to get it running.

So if anyone wants to make an easy change to Linux you can get it
over the internet and install in a separate partition.
That is called Dual boot, you can leave windows intact and have Linux
in a separate partition.
For an easy installation look for the Ubuntu distribution.
http://www.wikihow.com/Install-Ubuntu-Linux
Another is the Debian distribution.
Look for the Ubuntu Users magazine and install from a DVD.

For Windows 10 users, there is no rental requirement for any software
and everything is free.
Posted by Bazz, Thursday, 18 May 2017 10:58:39 AM
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Bazz -Quote "I think that its relative immunity to hacking is probably due to the permissions system."

There are programs available for Microsoft that can do the same or very similar, but the problem is people just letting every thing run because they don't know what it is or there are too many things starting so they click all of them.

Can't say much more because you used the words "relative immunity"
simple fact is what man makes man can break, banks spend millions of dollars on security and still get robbed.

Your one about dual boot is a way around for the average person, what they do is use microsoft with internet disconnected then use Linux to do things on inet.

I would not trust windows 10 for anything unless a number of other programs were installed to stop it from spying and key logging what you do.
Posted by Philip S, Thursday, 18 May 2017 12:03:17 PM
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