It’s been an interesting week for IT security. Next to the, almost usual, patches Microsoft advises it’s users to install asap, a nasty domain name spoofing problem emerged in the open source browser Firefox.
Even software like F-Secure that should be protecting your systemsfrom getting infected has been proven to have some serious issues of it’s own this week, which is at the least quite interesting, and also quite dangerous for anyone using the product right now.
This clearly shows that every piece of software has it’s vulnerabilities, and the claim that Firefox, Apple, Linux or whatever is safer to use than those evil Microsoft products is at the moment still true, but not because it’s code is so much safer, but simply because it’s still under the radar of virus writers and phishers.
The future will prove if the Open Source community will be able to patch security holes quicker than their commercial competitors (there’s a patch for the Firefox vulnerability online already), or if their code is really so much more secure and harder to exploit.
I’m guessing Firefox will be the first main target for virus writers and blackhat hackers in the coming year, as it’s gaining more and more popularity among the less tech savvy as we speak, and thus also becoming more interesting and visible on the evil hax0rz radarscreens.
So to keep your computer safe it definitely a good idea to keep yourself out of sight by using the not-so-typical tools, which are in most cases just as good, or even better than their commonly used MS counterparts.
