Netflix is powered by Ubuntu, as is Amazon Web Services. It powers everything from IoT devices to home desktops supercomputers to the web servers delivering the majority of your experiences on the internet. Murray is the Security Tech Lead for Ubuntu, a Linux distribution used by hundreds of millions. Rather than base my entire argument about Linux being safer on personal experience or subjective opinions, I reached out to Alex Murray at Canonical. And it's almost certain no one at Microsoft saw the codebefore it went out to those 1 million Asus laptop users. This next part is important: only a select few individuals at Asus are responsible for ensuring the software and firmware being sent through the Asus Live Update utility is safe.

On Ubuntu and other Linux distributions, my firmware updates, software updates and security updates come from a single source: the operating system's built-in software center. The code comes from multiple locations across multiple update utilities. The code can't be independently verified. That means it's not subject to inspection by the hundreds of millions of people using it. The vast majority of the code they use running on your computer is not open source. Intel, AMD, Dell, Nvidia, Realtek among several others. Why Ubuntu (And Linux In General) Is Saferĭell put forth considerable effort into making the popular XPS 13 the perfect Ubuntu laptop Jason EvangelhoĬonsider how many companies have independent control over the software and hardware inside your Windows PC. Then the company warns that three other Asia-based software vendors were attacked using the same method without revealing who they are.īut all of this information is just background for the real point I'm trying to make. What really rattles my cage about this situation is the fact that Kaspersky uses the word 'teaser' in the URL associated with its ShadowHammer post, as if this is some kind of movie trailer. In order to ensure the security of your information, ASUS recommends that you regularly update your passwords.' 'This will completely remove the malware from your computer. Given the circumstances, I'm not even going to link to it, but it's available via this press release page.Īn FAQ posted alongside the press release has a stinging piece of advice for users who were affected by the malware attack: 'Immediately run a backup of your files and restore your operating system to factory settings,' it states. (Especially since this is far from being the first security blunder Asus has made.)Īsus has since patched the Live Update software and issued a tool for users to determine if they owned one of the specific computers targeted.

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