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The Washinton Post Says Thumbs-Up to Linux for Banking

In a recent post I wrote called "Linux has no marketing, but what if it did?" I made the point that with Microsoft's Windows 7 OS coming out on October 22nd, there will be a blitz of marketing around it, and noted that there never is any such blitz promoting Linux. That post suggested that if Linux could have an equivalent marketing blitz, a very effective campaign might be built around how very much more secure and out of the line of fire of malware purveyors Linux is.

It's non-accidental that the spammers and crapware purveyors go after the top operating systems and applications on them in order of the OS installed bases: Windows (a lot), Mac OS (a little bit), Linux (hardly at all). Now, a Washington Post story is taking over where the Linux marketers never seem to tread and recommending Linux for online banking--for tighter security than Windows can provide.

Brian Krebs writes:

"Why is the operating system important? Virtually all of the data-stealing malware in circulation today is built to attack Windows systems, and will simply fail to run on non-Windows computers. Also, the Windows-based malware employed in [each of these] recent online attacks against businesses was so sophisticated that it made it extremely difficult for banks to tell the difference between a transaction initiated by their customers and a transfer set in motion by hackers who had hijacked that customer's PC."

Krebs cites an almost humorous banking exploit in which the bad guys proceeded in dual-step fashion, first authorizing themselves as approvers of bank transactions with a hack, then implementing phony transactions with another hack. He recommends that banks look into Linux as a platform and that cusomers look into Live CDs, which allow you to temporarily boot Linux even if you use another operating system. In this way, even if you're a staunch Windows user, your actual banking sessions can be kept ultra-secure via Linux.

Although he doesn't mention it, Linux solutions kept on USB flash drives can work just as well, and you can store the mini drives in your pocket. We provided lots of tips on the latter solution in this post. Krebs also provides an easy-to-follow tutorial on working with Linux Live CDs for online banking.

• linux
• Online Banking
• Live CDs
• USB flash drive

by Penguin Pete on Oct. 18, 2009

Well, see, the fact is that Linux has plenty of marketing - but for some reason it doesn't seem to be the kind that some bloggers want to accept. Oracle put a bus on the road with Unbreakable Linux all over the side of it, OLPC is moving Linux in many countries around the world, IBM hosts a whole wing of its site for Linux documentation and pastes a Tux sticker on the case of every zSeries 800 deployed, Google promotes "summer of code" for open source development...

It's "word-of-mouth" marketing done by corporations. And it isn't even done altruistically; every company I mentioned used Linux in its business and makes a profit from it. With articles like the Washington Post one, you can't buy that kind of publicity.

For some reason, the FOSS blogosphere just can't live with itself until some hairbrained donation campaign comes out to run a Linux radio commercial or sponsor a race car. Attempts which always fail, by the way. The concept that open source changes the tech world is one well within the grasp of the geek fan base; why is understanding that paid advertising is also an artifact of the dying proprietary tech world so impossible for that same base to conceive of?

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by Savings Account on Oct. 18, 2009

I don't see the problem with word of mouth marketing. I think the point is that they don't spend very much money marketing their OS unlike the other companies.

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