Microsoft bringing Defender to Linux desktops. Repeat: Microsoft bringing Defender to Linux desktops
2 days ago by supersquirrel to c/linux
pauses massive bong rip
Wait what this doesn't sound like reality
checks
Hmmm
You know... Morons.
"I install the malware to protec me from malware"
It’s just gonna be part of security audit theater. “Prove your organization is [x] compliant.”
IT: you have to use windows so we can add your computer to intune
Developer: no
IT: Microsoft pls
Microsoft: Ok it’s on Linux now, that’ll be another seat license for clamav wrapped in our logo or something
IT: omg we’re so secure
Auditing company: omg they’re so secure
Wait til you learn about EDR like crowd strike
IT departments that need to check the box thats says "does your organization have antivirus or anti malware protection on all desktops?". Common in soc audits and cyber insurance attestations.
ClamAV exists...
Yeah but clamav doesn’t have “a centralized dashboard with mdm and intune integration” e.g. a spreadsheet that says when everyone’s last scan was and that their definitions are up to date so the security theater can exist. Not to worry, more likely than not this is just built on a mountain of open source software like clamav that’s probably MIT licensed so MS can slap their logo on it and charge for it
“does your organization have antivirus or anti malware protection on all desktops?”
Talk about suggestive question phrasing. Where better organisational security could often be accomplished by assuming every device attached to the network is a potential threat, and focusing on the network security, shielding devices against each other with only whitelisted protocols, plus locking down all devices that are configured by corporate IT.
Practical IT security in most orgs these days is "configure a big firewall with default settings from corporate provider, assuming everything is safe inside." then they get one compromised device (USB stick, cell phone transfer, exploit, whatever) and the whole ass network is fucked. and they have a "oh well, we did everything we can" excuse. fucking BS.
Complicate requirement are kind of out of date. They keep adding requirements to them but then don't often take them away. So if a requiment made sense 20 years ago it's still there even though there are better strategies to protect your environment.
You could skip a requiment if you can establish a compensatinh control and show that the threat the requirements is intended to address is addressed. For example skipping antivirus by reimagining the devices every morning, this is an absurd example but would work.
Doesn't help that IT is outsourced to the lowest bidder, which typically means the IT contractor enslaving corporate IT to microsoft and playing a game of "forward the ticket". Then "IT managers" in the organisation responsible for the contract typically know jack shit about IT and are busy trying to save face over protecting their users from incompetent contractors.
ClamAV is shit, and I’ve been using it on my machine for years
No IT Auditor ever tests this, the just ask and if you say yes they move on. To actually test this you would have to statically sample a random sample of devices and confirm the antivirus is installed.
Instead that auditors are going to ask for a list off devices enrolled in the antivirus and a list of all devices (if the company even has an asset inventory) and see if they look right. But, most like the asset list will come from the antivirus enrollment and it won't matter.
Same people who use Microsoft Edge on Linux.
Don't forget powershell. https://learn.microsoft.com/...
Ah right. Forgot about that cancer. If we are at it, also Visual Studio Code (or VSCode for short) too.
I unironically use PowerShell on Linux. It's the only shell with sensible key bindings.
I guess to each their own. I am so used to getting bash (emacs) keybindings in macos that it drives me crazy that they don't work in KDE and Xwayland apps.
Edge on Linux is great for getting boomers to use Linux.
No, Linux can handle that. :-)
Bots?
Humans don't do that
I know a grad student that does. Compiles it from source themself.
Defense industry, and basically every 3-letter agency. Probably a lot of state- and county-level government offices too.
Not just telemetry, probably full root remote access.
It's mostly Windows of course. But some people in those companies may prefer to use Linux, and this gives a them a higher chance of being allowed to do so. I for one am running Linux in a company that's increasingly pushing for Microsoft stuff.
yeah no... Android is as linux as Windows is POSIX compatible e.g. absolutely irrelevant that in the backend is running a linux kernel. Besides, only Google Android is plastered with Google Telemetry.
Not by default
No, I mean when you install android it doesn't include the evil google blobs by default. You have to do that as an additional step.
I use a Linux desktop for work. My employer is constantly threatening to replace it with a mac "so they can control it". Their main control point is microsoft defender. I would rather have defender on my work machine than be forced to use a mac.
People will scoff at this but speaking from experience Defender is a very good AV if you are using MS Windows. MS has a vested interest in keeping their flagship OS safe.
Putting it on Linux though? No . Fucking. Way .
It's one of the few things they ever got right.
E: I should also say that the release of Defender was devastating to my "house doctor" PC services side-hustle. E2 XP SP1 out also rocked my profits - that RPC vuln was a gold mine
They want to scan all of my files. They can go fuck themselves.
Oh it's so much worse than a FIM.
They want a rootkit with RCE
I was going to say something but clammed up
clamav works fine on my mums laptop.
They can now ditch the dumpster fire of an OS that is Windows and lobby for the adoption of a corporate choke-point on Linux while continuing to bludgeon the remaining bits of your dignity and soverignity. At least this could be so for enterprise Linux.
And it'll probably feel 150% faster compared to Windows. Just like Edge. lol
Mildly related: I might try to convince my job to let me use Linux come device refresh time. But we use all Microsoft stuff. Is support for Teams, OneDrive, etc reliable on Linux? I have, of course, avoided it like the plague for personal use so I don't know. Is anyone else in a similar situation?
I have to use the web version for work anyways, so yes. One Drive is broken regardless of platform, unfortunately.
I've used Teams on Linux and it worked fine. Granted it was basically just a wrapper for the web version, similarly with Outlook for Linux. I've not used One Drive on Linux, but that is what I'd be more concerned about.
It's basically chromium running the web version, but it appears as though it's a stand alone app. At least that's how it worked for the couple of Teams for Linux and Outlook for Linux apps I tried. I used this as part of a contract gig for about 2 years on Ubuntu machine.
Not really imo
There's an unofficial Teams flatpak or just use web. I use Thundebird for Outlook. For some reason Outlook refuses to work on my Firefox, so I use Vivaldi for that too. OneDrive is fucked, but there is an Rclone integration if you can convince your workplace to give you the correct API permissions. I have unfortunately not.
It'll most likely be used immutables more than anything. Which is shit for me because I fucking love Ubuntu.
See I am the key to bad things happening!!!!
I switch to Ubuntu because windows slows down my ram speed and then windows goes and adds its security into it and makes it so that they're part of the OS no matter what.
Maybe they're already capitulating, accepting they couldn't write a proper os even if their damned lives depended on it and the next windows release will be a bastardised Linux distro with wine/proton built in so the compatibility would be transparent to the user. But idk, these are only hopes, I doubt that the people at Microsoft are that self aware and, even if they are, they'll find a thousand ways to fuck it up.
Why do we need defender if red hat exists?
What does Red Hat have to do with an anti virus?
I haven't been into linux since 2008 so forgive me on this one if I seem ignorant but isn't there redhat security and isn't that basically the same exact thing as defender except you just pay for it? Like isn't there redhat network security or some shit like that? So if linux already has a somewhat legacy security, why do we need to add microslop defender on top of it?
No, Red Hat for the most part is not in the security game. There is OpenSCAP. Red Hat OpenShift does have Advanced Cluster Security available. But generally no Red Hat doesn't make security products like that. I guess maybe the closest would be using Satellite to manage clients and see their compliance. I don't know if Satellite can measure OpenSCAP compliance... Yes, there is a lot of security built in, but no they don't really do many explicitly security products.
well that's a big F you for people enjoying freedom at work by using linux instead of windows and avoiding corpo bs
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Who on Linux is going to consent to Microsoft telemetry on their machine?
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