[K12OSN] Linux vulnerabilities?

[Huck]

Jonathan,

I'm not really new to Linux, but am new to administrating linux at the
enterprise level. I've been rooted once(that I know of) =)
and it was a published security hole that I was oblivious to, back in
'99.  I didn't know where to look, I didn't know how to update...
That was when I was completely new...now I know where to look for most
things...and constastly update packages(might be ill-advised on some
systems)
In that same amount of time...I've had zero failures from the OS...zero
downtime due to security holes(on linux systems)...and have had
nightmare upon nightmare from Windows products...mostly because patches
don't come out until after half-a-dozen or so students who think
"hacking" is kewl..find these exploits before windows update has updates
posted.

this has been my personal experience...but I will have to say .. with
Novell as a server OS, I've also had zero downtime from security
holes...but I did have to pay monetarily for it =)

--Huck


-----Original Message-----
From: k12osn-bounces at redhat.com [mailto:k12osn-bounces at redhat.com] On
Behalf Of Jonathan Kallay
Sent: Monday, May 17, 2004 4:31 PM
To: k12osn at redhat.com
Subject: [K12OSN] Linux vulnerabilities?


Hi all,
  I'm trying to push K12LTSP to the district IT office.  The managers
are in a strange position where they seem to be tiptoeing around the
'techies' to which they have outsourced some of the network
administration.  These 'techies' refuse to have anything to do with a
single Linux box on a network of several thousand computers, professing
at once both ignorance about Linux and at the same time spouting all
kinds of misinformation about how open source software is insecure.
I've been told that it would be to my benefit to identify what the big
Linux security holes are, to 'get everything out in the open,' so to
speak.  Because of the openness of the operating system, the only
security holes I know of are simply the result of system admin error or
ignorance.  Can anyone help me out?

Jonathan



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