Are You Secure?
Friday March 28, 2008
Judging by the fact that you are visiting this site and reading this material to begin with, I assume that you have at least made a valiant attempt at securing your PC. If you read through articles like Microsoft Windows Security 101, or Security Basics for Home Computing, or if you take the free Computer Security 101 course, and you apply what you learn, you should have a reasonable expectation that your PC is relatively secure. It might be a good idea to test that out though and identify any weak spots yourself rather than waiting for an attacker to find them. At VirtualHosting.com, you can read Can Your Machine Be Hacked? Test Yourself With These 12 Resources and use the tools identified to verify just how secure your PC is.
Comments
I’m an avid Ubuntu user i think i am a bit safer than Windows Machines
That depends on if you patch and update it- just like Windows
So far in 2008, Microsoft has released 17 Security Bulletins, while, according to Secunia, there have been 35 vulnerabilities discovered for Ubuntu 7.10.
Admittedly, 100% are reported as patched, and only 14% were rated as Highly Critical. However, 69% can be exploited remotely and 20% provide system access.
The very fact that you are using Ubuntu Linux suggests that you are a different level of techno-geek than the majority of the readers of this site, so I assume you keep up to date with the vulnerabilities and patches and the latest builds of the operating system. But, if you don’t, your system may not be all that secure, and for most of the readers of this site Automatic Updates in Windows is sufficient to keep their systems patched without having to become a techno-geek to do it.