e-mail and web safety

[Tony Dietrich]

Michael

This isn't really the place to describe WHY thats all you need, but ....

Windows machines are vulnerable because
1/ The OS code was never written in a way that made the systems secure
2/ Any code executed on a Windows machine can access almost every piece of 
data on that machine, with no regard for who owns that data.
3/ WIndows machines have a very limited concept of file ownership, or indeed 
of process ownership.

Linux was written as a network aware OS from the ground up.  It is designed 
with a multi-user enviroment in mind.
Linux knows who owns what file, and won't allow anyone else to have access to 
that data unless it is specifically told otherwise, by the owner of that 
data.
Linux knows who is running a program, and won't allow that program access to 
anything that it (or the person running that program) hasn't got permission 
to access.

So the biggest protection for a Linux user is that anyone writing a 
virus/trojan/worm knows that even if they successfully get through the basic 
defenses of the system, ALL they can infect are a few files owned by the same 
user that downloaded the file/opened the email.  They cannot, without 
considerable effort, get into that system's OS to do any real damage.

The programs Dan told you about are normally enough to protect you from almost 
anything you stumble into.

If you are really security conscious, you can go a lot further, and set up a 
tightly controlled enviroment with spam checkers, anti-phishing systems, etc.

You can even install a virus checker .. but you should be aware that (unless 
I'm totally out of date) there has only ever been 1 (ONE) virus released into 
the wild that could attack a Linux system .. and that was a controlled 
release of a virus that had no payload.

Most Linux-based systems with anti-virus software installed have it installed 
because they act as a mail/web gateway for Windows based clients.

Email me off list if you need further clarification.

TD

On Thursday 02 Feb 2006 22:15, Michael D. Berger wrote:
> These are interesting, but it is not obvious that they
> will protect me from attacks.
> Mike.
>
> --
> Michael D. Berger
> m.d.berger at ieee.org
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: fedora-list-bounces at redhat.com
> > [mailto:fedora-list-bounces at redhat.com] On Behalf Of Dan Track
> > Sent: Thursday, February 02, 2006 11:36 AM
> > To: For users of Fedora Core releases
> > Subject: Re: e-mail and web safety
> >
> >
> > Try these out:
> >
> > http://dansguardian.org/
> > http://www.squid-cache.org/
> >
> > Should give you safe web browsing.
> >
> > Dan
> >
> > On 2/2/06, Michael D. Berger <m.d.berger at ieee.org> wrote:
> > > Now that I have FC4 up and running, and have
> > > been successfully using pan for newsgroups,
> > > I have been considering using FC4 for routine
> > > e-mail and web browsing.  But on my win2k I
> > > have Norton Antivirus and ZoneAlarm anti-
> > > spyware.  What corresponding protections are
> > > available for FC4?  What are the risks?  I
> > > note that I have iptables, but I do not
> > > think that this will be sufficient
> > >
> > > Thanks in advance for your help.
> > > Mike.
> > >
> > > --
> > > Michael D. Berger
> > > m.d.berger at ieee.org
> > >
> > >
> > > --
> > > fedora-list mailing list
> > > fedora-list at redhat.com
> > > To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
> >
> > --
> > fedora-list mailing list
> > fedora-list at redhat.com
> > To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list