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Linux and the WannaCry Attack

Posted by gregladen on · 7 comments
Scienceblogs; By Greg Laden 		Mail this story
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If a cyber attack is a mugger, windows is a physically small drunken person with wads of money sticking out of his pockets, staggering down a dark ally past the convention hall during a mugger’s conference, while Linux is a hundred sober and smart well trained Navy Seals each driving a separate armored car in undisclosed locations.

Yes, you can attack the Navy Seals. But if you do that, they’ll make you wanna cry.

This is very simple, and it has more to do with the philosophy and marketing of operating systems than the technology of the operating systems themselves, though the technology does matter a great deal as well. First, lets have a look at how this ransomware attack was allowed to happen to begin with.

The vast majority of affected systems in this latest world wide cyber attack were Windows based computers that were not updated with recently available and easily deployed patch. The attack did not affect other operating systems, and Windows systems that had a recently released security patch were not affected. (I was going to put a link here to direct people to the Microsoft web page with info on what to do if you were attacked, but a minute or two of perusal on the Microsoft site mostly told me about Microsoft’s new products, and I did not find any such page. If you have a link, please place it in a snark free comment below.)

Why was the patch not deployed on so many computers? For several reasons....

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Comments (7)

Ridcully ·
If you haven't read this article, I think you should take the time. I personally think it's a beauty and one of the best logical comparisons of Windows and Linux security I have read. It's biggest asset is it is so simple to read and understand....even by an "oldie" like me. Have fun.
dotmatrix ·
I read through last night... Simply awesome! Loved it.
seatex ·
I had to forward that on, it was so good.
nmset ·
>Roads and canals were often privately owned (as were fire departments and police forces in many cases) and eventually it became apparent that these are all public goods, so they were essentially taken over by the government. Similarly, power companies and railroads.

MS, Apple, IBM & co. may say it's a dangerous reasoning if it were applied to the dollar. The whole world may say : "Hey, we all use the dollar for big business, it should be a worldwide public entity and not privately owned !"
mbaehrlxer ·
Quoting:the entire route is blocked by a series of doors that only specific people have permission to open, at specific times, for specific reasons. Everything you do requires having permission at every step of of the way, and it is all constantly being carefully watched.


this is describing linux, but my first thought was the annoying permission popups in windows. ;-)

Quoting:The desktop provides the user experience, and the user experience sells the product.


it is not the desktop user experience that sells windows, but the preinstalled nature of it. GNOME or KDE were preinstalled on every computer, it would sell, and the majority would not have any need to switch to windows.

greetings, eMBee.
the_doctor ·
Happiness is knowing that your computer will never end up on this map:

https://intel.malwaretech.com/pewpew.html
JaseP ·
I loved the last line,... "But they'll make you wanna cry." ... Classic!

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