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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: 2) by shipofgold on Monday January 09 2017, @03:31PM
Thanks for the advice...I will look into Calculate or Gentoo for my next build. The only issue I have with the smaller distros is what support they will have in 5 years. When I setup a system I typically run it for a long time, put a number of packages on it with configuration files customized to my environment, and tweak it over time to get it just where I want it. My current desktop is from 2008. I just retired a build from 2003 that was running F13....took me 3 weeks to get its replacement configured in a similar fashion, and there are still some things that don't work the way they use to (DHCP updates to DNS...).
Rolling releases may soften the upgrade pain by spreading it out over time. But I suspect that I will still be forced to take updates with "new features" on programs that work just fine for me. Sure I would want security updates to those programs, but I don't want an update that changes the configuration file, or requires new config options be specified that were not there before. I will check it out before whining any more.
Somehow, Windows7 just works when installing later versions of one program...I don't need to take upgrades to one program to get updates on another. Updating Windows7 OS with patches (normally) does not break installed programs. I know Windows7 has its share of headaches, and I don't pretend to know what is going on under the hood. I don't run it on my personal computers, but it sure is easier to do when my wife wants the latest iTunes. I do know the day is coming where Windows10 will rule and updates for programs running on Windows7 are no longer coming...but it was a good long ride on Windows7.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday January 09 2017, @04:54PM
Well, Gentoo isn't exactly a smaller distro and it's been running for quite a long time. Calculate? Shurg. They may or may not be active five years out but it should be a "relatively" painless trip to proper Gentoo if they do fold.
I agree about Windows 7 though. It's quite a solid gaming platform, though I run it in a VM nowadays so I can roll it back a snapshot or two when it becomes necessary.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.