[SGVLUG] safe online banking

[matti]

Hi,

well there are many different attacks,

also, which windows??

windows XP? (the most popular)
or 
windows vista? (winsta?)

they are significantly different in terms
of security.


also, 
since many attacks are browser based, and some which
the anti-virus are not protecting from...

"phishing and pharming" seem to be some of the
more popular attacks, which are being countered
by newer browsers better. (cross site attacks also.)

so, really I think the answer is having the
most current patches on the browser and paying
attention to forged sites...

since linux in general will not have IE installed,
that's less of an attack "surface"

still an old unpatch linux system is as bad as an 
old unpatched windows system imho.

an updated OS with an old browser is BAD!
many people will get taken on phishing/pharming
attackes. (if the antivirus catches the phishing
attempt, then it maybe better than an non-AV system.)

still, I think an updated linux system with updated
browser SW w/o anti-virus can survive better than
a like windows system.

the benefit of OpenSource is that you can run/upgrade
to the most secure version of the software without
having to pay $, and you can fix things if no one
else will.

best
matti

> I was just asked a very interesting question in the
> breakroom -- "is it
> safer to use linux without any sort of anti-virus software
> compared to
> windows running stuff like Norton when doing online
> banking?"