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Linux Hardening Guide / Linux is Insecure (madaidans-insecurities.github.io)
submitted 1 week ago by BigHeadMode@lemmy.frozeninferno.xyz to c/linux@lemmy.ml
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Writeup from 2022 that I assume is mostly still valid. TLDR:

  1. Mainstream Linux is less secure than macOS, Windows, and ChromeOS. (Elsewhere: "[iOS/Android] were designed with security as a foundational component. They were built with sandboxing, verified boot, modern exploit mitigations and more from the start. As such, they are far more locked down than other platforms and significantly more resistant to attacks.")
  2. Move as much activity outside the core maximum privilege OS as possible.
  3. OP doesn't mention immutable OS, but I assume they help a lot.
  4. Create a threat model and use it to guide your time and money investments in secure computing.

Once you have hardened the system as much as you can, you should follow good privacy and security practices:

  1. Disable or remove things you don't need to minimise attack surface.
  2. Stay updated. Configure a cron job or init script to update your system daily.
  3. Don't leak any information about you or your system, no matter how minor it may seem.
  4. Follow general security and privacy advice.
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[-] verdare@piefed.blahaj.zone 26 points 1 week ago

I’ve had a hot take for a while now that Linux isn’t “more secure” than other operating systems like a lot of evangelists will claim. I think people get this impression because the user base for desktop Linux has been small enough that no one was writing malware targeted at us.

Unix’s security model was developed in a world where the primary concern was protecting the system from users and protecting users from each other. It wasn’t really designed for single-user systems where the main concern is protecting the user from their own applications.

[-] BigHeadMode@lemmy.frozeninferno.xyz 11 points 6 days ago

no one was writing malware targeted at us

Probably not true now. It took some digging but I found e.g. BPFdoor https://attack.mitre.org/software/S1161/ which "does not need root to run" https://sandflysecurity.com/blog/bpfdoor-an-evasive-linux-backdoor-technical-analysis

The silver lining is that a lot of these backdoors are nation-state level so you might not be targeted by them. If I had data on my computer worth a dang, I'd be more concerned.

[-] cassandrafatigue@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 5 days ago

It would be hard to be less secure than windows.

this post was submitted on 22 Nov 2025
44 points (100.0% liked)

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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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