IE 11 Not Supported

For optimal browsing, we recommend Chrome, Firefox or Safari browsers.

More than 90 Percent of Linux Systems Have Never Been Infected by a Virus

And 80 percent have never been hacked, says a new survey

Ninety two percent of survey respondents indicated that their Linux systems have never been infected with a virus, from Evans Data's July survey of 500 Linux developers. Further, 78 percent of Linux developers say that their Linux systems have never been hacked and less than 7 percent were hacked 3 or more times. Of the 22 percent that have been hacked, 23 percent of the intrusions were by internal users with valid login IDs.

The main ways that Linux machines can be compromised are: inadequately configured security settings, vulnerability in internet service, and Web server flaws.

From a seperate survey done in April by Evans, and of the same scope -- the North American Development Survey -- 3 in 5 non-Linux developers reported a security breach and 32 percent experienced 3 or more breaches

"It's not surprising that Linux systems aren't hacked to the degree that Windows-based machines can be exploited. The reasons for the greater inherent security of the Linux OS are simple, more eyes on the code means that less slips by and the OS is naturally going to be better secured," said Nicholas Petreley, Evans Data's Linux analyst. "As also found in Evans' recently released Security Development Survey, the mechanism by which a Linux machine can be compromised is by users inadequately configuring security settings. Ironically, the other flaws that crackers use to compromise Linux servers are flaws in applications which run on competing operating systems, so those vulnerabilities are not specific to Linux."