LiveCD Hack and Exploits

[anon_private]

Hi,

I received an email recently which advised conducting on-line banking using a LiveCD, but then rebooting and continuing to work under Windows in order to avoid any possible hacks and exploits in Linux.

I don't undertsnd this, surely the UBUNTU LiveCD is free of exploits and hacks.

Thanks

A

[mo79]

That's very bizarre. The best thing to do under any OS is to always enter the online banking link by hand or verified bookmark, but perhaps have security software on Windows to guard against potential keylogger programs. Under Ubuntu I'd breathe even more easily.

[CharlesA]

They were talking about the host OS (mostly referring to Windows). Booting from a livecd is supposed to be "more secure" but if you think about it, a livecd is just an non-updated version of an OS that operates entirely in RAM. Reboot and anything you have done is gone. That means it leaves no trace on the host OS, and if there are malware or keyloggers or whatnot on the OS they cannot get your bank details.

A bit overkill IMHO. Smart computing > most of the "bad" stuff out there.

[drreed]

Hi,

I received an email recently which advised conducting on-line banking using a LiveCD, but then rebooting and continuing to work under Windows in order to avoid any possible hacks and exploits in Linux.

I don't undertsnd this, surely the UBUNTU LiveCD is free of exploits and hacks.

Thanks

A

The only weakness in this approach is the part where you "reboot and continue to work in windows".

Why would anyone want to do that? If the machine will run Linux as a liveCD then it ought to run it even better from the hard drive. How about being safer with windows by just getting rid of it all together? I don't need to boot a livecd to go to the bank. :)