The internet connects a whole lot of people together, and a certain percentage of them would like to get into our computers for one reason or another. I don’t know if there was ever a time when we didn’t have to worry about security, but, in my opinion, just as everyone who drives a car should know how to fix a flat tire, everyone who uses the internet should keep themselve informed on how to improve their computers security. If they practice good sense and understand where the vulnerabilities are, I think they can minimize the risk to any operating system.

And now, I’ve got to go and reformat my hard drive.

Thanks for the comment. In retrospect, I feel kind of lucky that I started my whole foray into GNU/Linux by setting up a Debian box to run my mail, web, and telnet BBS. It was only after 6 months or so of running that box that I started to wonder how this Linux thing would fare on as a desktop OS. The rest is history, but that all-important start on the server-side left me with a healthy respect for two things: the power of the command-line applications and utter fear of running as root

The biggest one: a Linux system running as root with wireless connectivity active.

The exploits, though RARE, target the open sockets on the system (remember most flavors are not DESKTOP but SERVER based, meaning they include plenty of server applications).

I’ve seen people sitting at home “lose” their root password, because one of their friendly “neighbors” tapped into and hacked their system.

This REMAINS RARE, but growing a bit at a time and can easily be shut down completely by NOT USING ROOT account when on the internet.

just my 2 cents to a very good blog entry of yours.