From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word “Linux” in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0
In one way, it could be argued that this has a positive side to it. As more people consider Linux adoption, malware authors are noticing that and determining that it is worth their time to write a linux version of their malware.
On the other hand, Linux systems often contain more valuable things than Windows or Mac. The average person probably doesn’t have too much valuable data on their PC, but a web server? Database server? Corporate network control node? Those are jackpots in comparison.