Or historical exploits/trojans/etc. that deserve more attention? I’ve mostly heard about lucrative vulnerabilities that concern Linux servers, but what about the end-users on desktops? Or is the Linux desktop market small enough that we mostly just see one-off instances of users blindly running malicious scripts?

  • SmoochyPit@lemmy.ca
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    1 day ago

    I haven’t heard of any such cases, but it is a smaller pool of users. Also, many desktop Linux users know more about using a computer than other operating system users, since it’s less common for Linux to come preinstalled. So that may affect it, too.

    I imagine vulnerabilities with the Linux kernel or common utilities do apply to desktop users as well, which is a good reminder why staying up-to-date is important. But to my understanding, exploiting remotely would need a way of sending data to the target. And most desktop computers won’t have ports open to the internet for anyone like servers will.

    I know that Wayland’s design does make it more difficult for a user-mode program to act maliciously, like as key-loggers or reading the clipboard.

    • a Kendrick fan@lemmy.ml
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      8 minutes ago

      that Wayland’s design does make it more difficult for a user-mode program to act maliciously,

      Sorry, can you tell me more about this?

    • Quazatron@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      smaller pool of desktop users

      There, I fixed it for you.

      This is about desktop Linux, so I was wrong to correct you. My bad.

      • SmoochyPit@lemmy.ca
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        11 hours ago

        All good! You’re still totally right; outside of the context, Linux has quite the user base with servers, embedded devices, and even phones, if we count Android. I think that’s relevant because it means we can’t rely on “security by obscurity”.