Red Hat employee Daniel J. Walsh writes via OpenSource.com
When I was young, Paul Simon released his hit song, 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover. Inspired by this song, I've collected 50 ways sysadmins and laypeople can avoid getting hacked:
"Make a new plan, Stan"
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6. Run applications in the SELinux Sandbox whenever possible--it was a container before containers were cool. Also follow the development of Flatpack, which soon should be developing sandboxing capabilities.7. Don't install or use Flash. Firefox no longer supports it, and hopefully most web servers are moving away from it.
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"Just get yourself free"
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19. [...] I don't do online banking on my phone--only on my Linux computer.
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"Hop on the bus, Gus"21. Run Linux on your systems. When I first hooked my father up with a computer system, I barely got home before his system was infested with viruses. I returned and installed Linux on his system and he has been running it ever since.
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"And get yourself free"
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50. Set up a special guest network for all those Christmas IoT devices your kids receive. I love my Amazon Echo and automated lights and power switches ("Alexa, turn on the Christmas Lights"), but each one of these is a Linux operating system [whose manufacturer's configuration] has questionable security.
Do you take exception with anything he suggests. (Being a Red Hat guy, he is enthusiastic about systemd.) Can you think of something he missed?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by dlb on Monday January 09 2017, @11:22AM
As long as you have proper protection you should be fine on any OS.
This is the magic right here, keeping one's system updated. And understanding the protective features of a system and making use of them.
I have never had a virus, spyware or any other nasty on any of my machines.
I'm also tempted to make this claim, but I realize that it has to be added "...as far as I know."
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Monday January 09 2017, @08:59PM
If it is a bot from a botnet, it will do all it can to not be noticed by you.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Tuesday January 10 2017, @01:36PM
Now throw Win 10 on that father's computer and watch him have a coronary, lol.
I am a Linux user with almost no experience with win 10, but this is how I heard the conversation go between an older person and a newish win 10 user:
"How do I get my desktop back?!?!?!?"
"Just click on the Office thing."
"But I don't want to use Office."
"When Office opens, just close it and you'll be at the desktop."
"Grumble grumble, why can't I just have my desktop back?"
Big lol from me.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---