linuxmemes

*guitar solo*

Got it, stop interacting with the world

I was already mostly doing this so

What would we do when these happen? What could we do in the moment to change anything?

Join an eventual class action?

Taking the internet into consideration, I would doubt "most".

there are much less vulrenabilities on Linux. No system is totally unpenetrable, but having 2-5 vulrebabilities is always better than having 30-40

Realistically the difference is in how Linux mitigates the common vectors for attack that Windows doesn't. Most malware targeting individual workstations gets in by either supply chain attack, vulnerable web renderer or by tricking the user into installing it.

Centralized repositories with centralized build tooling limits opportunities for supply chain attacks, plus helps prevent users from accidentally downloading a Trojan when trying to grab other software. Containerizing web applications helps limit browser exploits, and less "features" phoning home means a default incoming-deny firewall policy will largely prevent most vulnerabilities from being remotely serious.

So for an individual workstation, Linux is significantly safer from viruses. In the enterprise it's a completely different story where the threat environment does require defense in depth regardless of your choices of vendors

It probably makes you a less likely target though. I suppose that bots scan for known Widows vulnerabilities simply because that platform has a much higher market share among desktop operating systems. Besides, Linux distros offer a unified way to update all your software. On Windows, third-party software is often installed and maintained manually.

The way I have always liked to put it specifically is that Linux is not inherently more secure than windows. However Linux is inherently easier to secure than Windows. Namespaces, apparmor, seccomp-bpf, and a very fine grain limited vs super user permission system. Just to name a few top level things.

The tools are all there on basically any system, very well documented, relatively easy to use. And once you set them up they will not randomly change things on you. I say this as a system administrator having to deal with Windows constantly where Microsoft decides that they are smarter than you and fuck your group policy edits because we put out this update and we think this option is better so we're going to revert like half the shit you did. Over half my fucking job and security is just checking what did Microsoft fuck up about my security set up with this update, and trying to rotate through security vendor 2094726 to fill in the absolute basic security processes that windows doesn't provide

And I can do it wherever I want. And my work is in no way interrupted, while the updates go through.

And it had the Edge of not installing Candy Crush

Yep, my company allows me to use Linux but for Compliance Reasons I need to have Microsoft Defender installed and running. Still beats Windows 11 by a mile

and it will suck your servers dry.

most antivirus apps are very invasive, heavy on resources and even spy on you. Windows defender is usually enough. However, virustotal is still recommended

On one side, if you have a brain you're fine.
On the other side, *glances at general public typing google.com into google* ...yeah

Anti-virus is not going to stop you from stupidity. You classic "Anti-virus" won't stop anything more than run of the mill simple stuff.