Eighty percent Linux users have never been hacked

BANGALORE: The results of a recently conducted Evans Data Survey report turn the wheels in favor of Linux, adding fire to the already heated Winodws, Linux battle.

According to the survey, which was conducted on 500 Linux Developers, ninety two percent of survey respondents indicated that their Linux systems have never been infected with a virus.

When asked about the frequency of being hacked, 78% of them said that their systems have never been hacked and a measly 7% said that they were hacked for about three or more times. The remaining 22% said that their systems were hacked mainly due to intrusions by internal users with valid login ID's.

The study also revealed that security breaches happened with Linux machines either because of inadequately configured security settings, vulnerability in Internet service and Web server flaws.

These are very happy figures for Linux developers as compared to the results of Evan's Spring 2004 North American Development Survey, which was conducted on non Linux developers, where 3 in 5 of them reported a security breach and 32% experienced 3 or more breaches.

The results clearly indicate that Linux is a more secure OS, and Nicholas Petreley, Evans Data's Linux analyst, also backs the same.

"It's not surprising that Linux systems aren't hacked to the degree that Windows-based machines can be exploited. The reasons for the greater inherent security of the Linux OS are simple; more eyes on the code means that less slips by and the OS is naturally going to be better secured. Ironically, the other flaws that crackers use to compromise Linux servers are flaws in applications which run on competing operating systems, so those vulnerabilities are not specific to Linux."

Other findings from the July survey of 500 Linux developers indicates developer migration to the 2.6 Kernel has increased significantly over the past six months. And, 76 percent of Linux developers believe that the SCO lawsuit will not affect their company's adoption of Linux.

Linux emerges the winner, one more time!