Another malicious Trojan has surfaced. It found it’s way onto the computers of unsuspecting users and has stolen hundred of thousands of dollars. You can read all about the cyber-crime here.
The article has a couple of sentences that, for me, really stand out. The first is, ” Last night online banking customers were urged to make sure their anti-virus software was up to date – and to check for any missing sums from their account.”
The second sentence that caused my alarm to go off is, “’In the vast majority of cases, if people had kept their computer’s operating systems and software such as Internet Explorer up to date they would not have been attacked,’ he said.
‘More often than not Trojans exploit known vulnerabilities that can be simply patched and fixed by downloading updates.’”
Let’s examine the key words. “Anti-virus software.” “Internet Explorer.” “Trojans exploit known vulnerabilities.” It’s a safe assumption, when you read in between the lines, that all the victims had one thing in common. They were running Windows. What other operating system requires anti-virus software, runs Internet Explorer and has “known vulnerabilities?” Answer: Windows.
Windows is not very secure. And these home computer systems were more likely compromised because they were running Windows. And it’s a safe bet that the Trojan was specifically written to target and exploit Windows.
Need more proof? Read farther down. It says, “Computer owners should also make sure they have downloaded any updates of their operating software – usually Windows – and other programmes such as Internet Explorer, Firefox and Adobe.”
If you want to avoid all the nonsense of downloading patches, updating anti-virus software, etc., simply get Linux. Linux is immune to Windows viruses, Trojans and malware. Plus, Linux is extremely secure. Software is installed from a known repository administered by that specific Linux distribution. Therefore, software does not originate from an unknown third party. Plus, in order to install software on Linux, you need to give administration privileges to that application.
Linux is safe, secure and immune to all the nasty things out there that attack Windows.
Get the target of your back. Get rid of Windows, get Linux, and make your online banking more secure.
