Is this true?!

[crocodile1s]

hello...

I just found this page and i wanted to know is that true?..I am new at linux and it shocked me to know that linux may have security holes.

http://www.linuxbusinessweek.com/story/46895.htm

And if it is true , how to overcome it?
Also I dont know how to enable the iptables firewall...thank you all.

[robotics56a]

well i run mdk so i have no idea if this is a problem for people with SUSE but i can safely say that after a problem has been identified that it won't take long for a patch to fix it (and if you thinking that windows was more stable because a bug has been found in it i can tell you of at least 5 bugs in windows xp that still haven't been fixed (one is pretty bad but can't be used remotely))

of course the is no 100% secure system but the comes a point were crackers look at a system and say why don't i just attack the poorly protected system instead. i still have faith in linux. (i don't even like to use windows with norton firewall ever since they added in remote assiatance (remember all the worms after that ))

plus if you looked at that article it says that it causes a system crash it could be worse (i have had a lot worse with windows (ugh bad memorys)) hope that answers some questions

[sether]

yes, it's probably true. like robotics56a mentioned, there's no perfectly secure OS.

Apparently, any exploitation requires that a firewall be enabled.

interesting....

if you're really concerned with security, you can look into a non-iptables firewall (http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/IPCHAINS-HOWTO.html) or something, but you're probably fine. i don't mean to promote non-linux OSes here, but if you are interested in OS security, you might want to take a look at how OpenBSD does security: http://www.openbsd.org/security.html

[sarumont]

If you read the article, you'll see that it was fixed like last year (exaggeration).

No OS is perfect. The main difference between our bugs and Windows bugs (besides ours occuring less) is that they usually have a fix within a few hours. Why? Everyone can see the source, and therefore anyone can write a patch to close the hole.

[crocodile1s]

Thanks guys..for your replies and useful info and this wonderful security link ..
I am using linux not because i hate windows but because I loved linux from the first hour I used it .

Thank you all again.