Fuck Windows and Microsoft really. Today I had a meeting call through Teams first thing in the morning so I start my computer 10 minutes earlier than the call because it takes a like 3 or 4 minutes to boot and for Windows to be responsive. Windows decides to apply some past update so it takes 2 or 3 additional minutes which is fine, I am just in time for the meeting call. Well, 10 minutes into the call a notification in windows appears that the computer will restart in 5 minutes and with no option to postpone WTF. Imagine this was an important sales call, an emergency or something else critical, I might be fucked. The computer restarted I started my linux personal computer and I connect my bluetooth headphones to the it but no, they were connected to the Windows computer while it was restarting so I could not just call from it as the microphone started failing a few weeks ago. (I will just replace it, thanks Framework). So fuck my company for using Windows. Fuck Windows for developing such a nightmare OS with so shitty code. This was for sure a patch for a critical vulnerability, like always. And WTF this is Windows for a business, have a fucking super stable branch that does not need patches every other day. I don’t care about your updates to the shitty weather widget, just have a fucking working operating system that let’s me do my work. Fuck Microsoft monopolistic practices that keeps people and businesses from switching to Linux. There is no better publicity for Linux that Windows itself. Most Linux/GNU distros just let you choose when to update.
Most hacks interact with Linux because its in almost every corporate environment. People can still get scammed on Linux on their personal device too since rdp clients are compatible and a common method used. Linux Desktop is 4% market share (according to steam surveys?) but server infrastructure is largely Linux based, from firewalls to Web servers to database infrastructure. Most people host some form of Linux environment and lots of ransomware actors have Linux specific encryptors.
Think of it this way: if the environment you just hacked has their corporate SQL database with all of their trade secrets sitting on Linux infra, and you’re a ransomware actor, you’re not going to give up and go hack someone else. Well, not if you’re any good I guess.
The Linux community is better at finding and detecting this stuff due to more people looking at it and open source making it available etc. It’s attack surface (software that could be attacked) is still huge and the danger comes from outdated versions and misconfigurations just like anything else.
Patch often, install from trusted sources, have backups. That’s really all you can do. Every environment has vulnerabilities. They sit at desks and push keys on the keyboard.