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Re: [LUG] How safe is online banking from a general-use (surfing, email, work etc) linux computer?

 

On Tue, 15 Feb 2011, Roland Tarver wrote:

Hi Folks :-)

I have been trying to advise a colleague about on-line banking and security.

She uses windows XP (I think) on a wireless laptop. She uses the same
PC and same OS to do general day-to-day web surfing, work, email etc
etc.

The following article notes how this is a bad idea:-

http://blogs.computerworld.com/15815/can_ubuntu_save_online_banking

"Nobody seems to think doing online banking from the machine you use
every day for Web surfing and e-mail is a good idea."

I dare say there are many more similar articles out there.

I suggested using a live-linux cd for her banking.

....which got me thinking...

How safe/secure is it to do online banking from a computer where linux
is the default(installed) OS?

Should we too be booting a CD OS?

It depends...

What you're "protecting" against is PC bourne viruses, keyloggers, trojans, etc. If you're sure your PC is free of them, then go ahead and use your PC...

But by all means use it as a way to speread the goodness about Linux :)

I login to my bank from my desktop and latop frequently without booting into a live-cd. YMMV.

Gordon

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