Windows Linux Dual boot
Hello there,
I have a question. If I'm doing windows linux dual boot, is there any possibiliy that windows can spy my data on linux? Or: if i got ransomwared on windows, is my linux part of my pc safe or not?
How can I prevent all above?
Thx
Windows cannot access EXT4 or BTRFS by default. Also in Linux you can use LUKS to have your partition encrypted, and Windows even with a ext4/btrfs driver will not be able to read your data.
Of course Windows, if infected, could wipe your partition table or things like this.
I don't think Windows will spy on Linux, but you never know, as we don't have the source code of Windows to look it up. If you get ransomed, they can lock the whole ssd, even if your Linux partition might be encrypted already. And even if you have Linux on a separate ssd.
To prevent all that, practice good use of Windows without going to questionable websites or downloading apps from random places. But the best would be to either have a different PC for Linux. You can buy a small factor PC for $99 these days, brand new. Or, each time before you boot into windows, you disable on the BIOS the SSD with Linux in it. This way, no Windows malware can "see" that there's another SSD there, so they won't be able to lock it. Unless of course they lock your BIOS too...
BIOS /UEFI malware exist too. Your suggested best practices should also factor this in. Basically if you're being targeted there's nothing you can do but by being aware of these risks you have a better chance to keep yourself safe.
if you're being targeted that much, using windows is a huge no no in the first place
Is it likely? No. Is it possible? Yes.
If you want to make absolutely sure that Windows can't spy on anything, you'll need to physically remove the storage device containing Linux when booting.
A more practical but slightly less secure approach is to enable full disk encryption on Linux. Then, if Windows does decide to get sneaky it'll only see random data.
This doesn't prevent hostile code such as ransomware from destroying the data though. For that, you need to have good backup hygene.
A good backup system is to have automatic daily backups to some online cloud storage provider, and weekly or monthly backups to a physical device you keep disconnected and safe.
I tried to dual boot for a while but it was just not worth the hassle as Windows always broke something and after almost every update I had to try and fix my Linux install. Windows is basically malware at this point.
I use KVM and put Windows in a VM for those things that it still is needed for. Don’t use it much these days. Dual booting was just too difficult.
That's a sensible approach. I used to need Windows for one particular program that I couldn't get to run on Linux and i also put it in a VM. Luckily I've found a replacement since.
If you install Linux first, Windows will see a grub partition on install and go "Oh, let me use this too" disregarding it's for an entirely different OS. Then when grub is updated by Windows it goes "What's all this crap, nah, we don't need any of this" and then your Linux distro can't be booted.
I've dual booted for years, never had an issue because I installed Windows first.
I work with a Grub boot for Win11 / Debian on the same disk (work provided laptop without the persuasion to change my employer MS-First policy) but one of the lucky ones I guess. No problem for 2 years now.
Only thing after a big Windows update it forgets its TPM Bitlocker key for its own partition. Must type it like once in 2 months manually.
Thx for all the suggestions. Is there any mainboard which automatically unmount all other drives when you boot into an OS?
Mounting a drive is the function of the OS. If you mean automatically disabling a port, no, typically motherboards don't have that functionality.
Automatically, no. And have a look at this too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTjj1ILCwRs
if we're being paranoid, unplug or swap out the linux disks while running windows
i wouldn't bother though, windows itself doesn't mount non-ntfs partitions (again, unless we're being paranoid and assume that they do, since it is relatively easily done, it's open source, technically they could be able to do it)
also people in this thread are not doing dual booting right, i have multiple pcs with windows and various linuxes, the latest machine has two distros as well, and i never had an issue, in many years (the oldest is an athlon x2 with windows 7 and mint 22.1)
i think the key to my success is that i install them on separate drives, so windows has its own boot sector and everything, and then the linux bootloaders find it and do their own thing
I cannot answer definitively, but it's highly unlikely that windows could access any data from your Linux partition. That said, if you're that concerned about the potential for this to happen, perhaps your shouldn't use windows at all. This is coming from a PC gamer who uses Linux exclusively.
Other systems should not be able to see your data on a Linux install as long as the disk is encrypted, which is proposed during the install of many distros.
AFAIU, ransomware will try to lock all devices, USB drives, etc, so no, your Linux install is not safe from that if it is on the same machine. Even machine on the same network might be at risk.
How to prevent ? Backup! Loosing your entire machine data should not be an issue but just a matter of re-installing the OS and recovering your data from a backup. Have at least two backup, including one outside of your house.
About dualbooting though... Putting Windows + anything else on a single drive is a really bad idea and Windows WILL try and take over it, at least breaking the boot partition. More concerning, and it actually happened to me recently: when putting a Linux on one disk and Windows on an other in the same machine, the Windows somehow still managed to break the Linux boot partition...
So if you can afford it and really want to have both OS, you should try and have two machines or at least install Linux on a drive that you can easily unplug.
I hope this will be helpful, good luck!
Like I said elsewhere, the ideal way if you absolutely need to run Winblows on the same machine, is to do so within a VM on the Linux host. Not usually an option if the purpose is gaming, and, well, usually the purpose is gaming.
I had a dualboot on my last laptop for a long time and seems they've toned the overwriting of the bootloader way down since the invention of EFI. For the last 8 years or so it occasionally changes the boot order to default to Windows, every time these larger updates come in. But it doesn't seem to overwrite anything any more.
Other than that, I'd also recommend Backups. Windows doesn't come with drivers for these filesystems, so it can't read Linux files. But theoretically things could happen to the data on a harddisk nonetheless.
Y'know, there’s a little part of me that suspects that just because Windoze will not read certain file systems for the user doesn’t mean it doesn’t read those file systems. Especially now that data theft is their business model. I know it’s a little paranoid, but the OS may very well be reading stuff it claims to not recognize. Just food for thought.