cross-posted from: https://piefed.world/c/uncommon/p/1089778/linux-is-actually-very-vulnerable-to-exploits-and-it-s-showing-with-high-value-vulnerabi
I hate when people keep repeating the myth that Linux is more secure than X OS without any understanding of how much Linux gets exploited.
On the other hand, FreeBSD rarely suffers from wide security issues.
Overall, I don’t think anyone should repeat the myth that Linux is secure.
And at least if they gonna recommend Linux, they better recommend a good distro with SeLinux, hardened kernel and hardened OS.
Me when I’m not a professional with no understanding of his things actually works and I accidentally reinvent “computers insecure, avoid them at all costs for max cybersec”
OpenBSD can, objectively, do only a fraction of what Linux can. As a result, it is expected it will have only a fraction of vulnerabilities.
“I hate when people keep repeating the myth that Linux is more secure than X OS without any understanding of how much Linux gets exploited.”
Very few operating systems are secure out of the box. It’s up to the users to make it secure. It just so happens to be that Linux is the easiest to make secure, therefore I’ve always seen it as such when done right. Not to mention, I can know exactly how everything works rather than the blackboxes of Win or Mac.
It’s impossible to know what’s happening on macOS. The number of open processes that are running on their computer is mesmerising, so the user feels disempowered. I dream of daily driving FreeBSD
What does it mean to “make Linux secure”? What does secure mean to you (genuine question). I see people say they can make Linux secure but from what kinds of attacks. I think madaidan’s blog explains why you can’t as an individual fix an issue with the entire ecosystem, or fix the kernel of its inherent security flaws https://madaidans-insecurities.github.io/linux.html
I think “good security” in my personal opinion means that even if you try to run a malicious app, it either crashes out right or can’t do anything because it doesn’t have the permission to.
One thing that I think is very misunderstood is that messy or extremely large/dense code can be very hard to understand, even if you have the source code. Like systemd, it is several million lines of code and is very tangled together. Is it that much better than a blackbox if no one can audit the whole thing (unless you are a massive team)? I do think it is better to have source code and documentation, but vulnerabilities arise from unintended interactions in the code. The more code there is, the higher the chance of this happening.
much smaller target so far fewer people are looking for holes in bsd, subsequently there are fewer reported ‘issues’.
and if you tasked all the persons and organizations looking for holes in linux to do the same to bsd…
this ⬆️
also it is a gud thing we are finding exploits so that we can fix them ; theres currently no OS with zero exploits, the fact that none being found is concerning bcz nobody is checking and there might be some bad exploits in them…
There are ten thousand Linux distributions—some of which are shit—and only one FreeBSD.
The amount of different distros is mesmerising. On my previous laptop, I wanted to use Linux but I wiped and installed more distros per day than the amount of hours I used it.
Each had its drawbacks: systemd, snapd, no HDMI support, etc. And Gnome would just freeze in the middle of presentations
no HDMI support
What distro doesn’t have HDMI support?!
Sometimes I wish people would back up their factual claims with numbers and studies.
Also: FreeBSD phone, when??
Interesting that this chart separates the SKUs on the Windows NT kernel but lumps all the Linux kernel stuff together. I have to imagine that this isn’t intentional and it’s just an artifact of how they collect data.
This seems like a better resource for tracking a specific product over time than comparing between them. It’s also worth mentioning, as the other person pointed out, that the Linux kernel is the most audited codebase of all time, so that likely also plays into this a bit.
Thanks for the link! But I’m afraid it doesn’t tell me much. a) FreeBSD isn’t even on the list, so I don’t know the numbers to compare it to. and b) there’s things like survivorship bias. Looking at numbers like this is literally the textbook example of how to do it the wrong way. You have to do statistics the proper way around. For all we know by those numbers, Linux could be the best battle-tested OS in the world. I mean they fixed 3 times as many vulnerabilities as Microsoft did for any of their products?!
Sure, let’s lump all distros into a pot called “Linux.” A vulnerability in one must mean a vulnerability in all.
i’m glad to see more bsd stuff here and dissapointed to see the redditors downvote it nothing.
Linux isn’t inherently secure, it never was, just unpopular. Now that’s changing, *BSD becomes the safe heaven.
