Regardless of us using Linux on our home computers, most businesses and services use Windows machines. Your information is likely still stored on Windows machines elsewhere if you interact with the world at all.
With that in mind, it's worth being aware of Windows security problems when they come up.
What would we do when these happen? What could we do in the moment to change anything?
Join an eventual class action?
People here running *nix OSes while I run a Nix*OS
Sometimes Mint tells me there are security updates available. Happened just this morning. Updating makes me feel good :)
And I can do it wherever I want. And my work is in no way interrupted, while the updates go through.
And it had the Edge of not installing Candy Crush
And put edge back in the taskbar.....
I mean... a form of Microsoft Defender is available for Linux, but only for enterprise customers if I remember correctly 😅
Yep, my company allows me to use Linux but for Compliance Reasons I need to have Microsoft Defender installed and running. Still beats Windows 11 by a mile
Bootkitty?
However,
you can already patch your BIOS to become secure again! :)
All in all, Windows security is a joke compared to Linux's.
Windows security is... fine? It could be better, but it's pretty much on par with linux security. Both have their vulns, but they're both also able to be secured enough that most (if not all) major data breaches are via phishing or other social engineering attacks, not solely software exploits. There's lots of fodder for the Linux vs. M$ debate, but this one is maybe a bit out of date.
If you actually dig deeper into the Linux security topic, you'd find out that Linux is actually not very secure. GrapheneOS developers made quite a lot of posts on what Linux distros (and the kernel) are missing in terms of security. A lot of "Linux security and the lack of viruses" rides on the waves of "there is hardly any point of creating malware for a system with such a small user base, plus you have to consider the fact that people knowledgeable enough just to install a Linux distro would be a bit more careful about their computers than the average Joe".
there is hardly any point of creating malware for a system with such a small user base
Actually the whole world runs on linux, Windows is mostly the low level consumer end.
Which makes your argument true for a certain segment of malware (the cheap low tech stuff more akin to scams etc targeting people en mass but expected to have a low return), but not actually for the parts where the money is that justify elaborate malware and hacks.
The internet runs on linux.
(Webservers, some network equipment, monitoring servers, NAS, DNS, ... lots of services can be setup and ran for free on linux. ((Companies like free)))
Same for people using windows 7
Is not having an anti-virus good for most people though?
most antivirus apps are very invasive, heavy on resources and even spy on you. Windows defender is usually enough. However, virustotal is still recommended
Is this something that someone who doesn't have tech as a hobby cares enough about to change they're os?
I would say yes? Many if my friends in uni were using laptops that had McAfee built in. I'm not exaggerating when I say they were unusable. I removed that shit and those machines were snappy af.
On one side, if you have a brain you're fine.
On the other side, *glances at general public typing google.com into google* ...yeah
Anti-virus is not going to stop you from stupidity. You classic "Anti-virus" won't stop anything more than run of the mill simple stuff.
Most of the time that's what people need an antivirus for, most attacks the average person will suffer will be some script that's easily caught by the antivirus.
If the script doesn't have permission to do anything it doesn't matter. See Android as an example.
there is an update, i applied it at the weekend
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