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Revision as of 02:59, 9 February 2009 by Ush (talk | contribs) (→‎Running things as root is a bad idea: new reference format)

Security Week

In this section, we highlight the security stories from the week in Fedora.

Contributing Writer: JoshBressers

Encryption Security

With all the recent talk of encrypting hard drives, the cold boot method, and using proper passwords, this[1] xkcd comic reminds us of the weakest link in all cryptography, the person with the password.

Running Things as root is a Bad Idea

While I always knew this, this article still sort of blows my mind: Windows Security Improved By Denial Of Administrative Rights[1] To quote the article:

... configuring users to operate without administrative rights mitigates the impact of 92% of "critical" Microsoft vulnerabilities ...

92%, that is mind boggling. It's been sound advice for a long time in the Linux world, not to do things as root. I suspect if we expected everyone to be doing everything as root, virtual any minor security flaw would suddenly become a very serious matter.