I think you're right. A single desktop, unless it is either someone in a position of power or access to trade secret files, is not a time effective attack vector.
A server on the other hand can access all of that stuff across an entire organization.
Not just that but whenever you hear that company xyz was hacked and their data leaked, what do you think was powering their servers? Most likely Linux. Sure, they usually have more things exposed to the internet, but users install way more apps so the attack surface is vastly bigger in home computers running Linux than servers.
The cruder the malware, the better your chances of running successfully in Wine.
Because throwing together some simple executable using inbuild windows functions is much easier than programming something well-build and hidden based on deeper system layers. So your random "I just encrypted all your files because you clicked this .exe, now send me bitcoin to get it back"-bullshit might work well on wine (which is why wine should be run as it's own user with no priviledges to access anything but your Windows programs).
I've been using Linux for almost 20 years, and AFAIK in all that time I've never encountered a Linux virus. OTOH when I run Windows, I hit a virus within the first six months.
Sounds like you have bad habits, I've had windows for years and no problems. Just scan with Defender after a download, occasional Malwarebytes scans to make sure, and you're pretty safe.
Most viruses are written for windows but that doesn't mean you're just instantly safe. You can bet as Linux grows they'll see far more.
— When the Indian Amazon support guy sees you're a junior on your first week and tells you to execute a script to install a software for a video call with him. And you do, but it needs sudo access, so you give it...
— You have sudo power here
Sadly, true story. I never told anyone. My neurons clicked a day after that and I removed everything from the computer. It was too late, they hacked some things but IT just laughed and recovered some backups. They never knew I was the virus all along.
True story, Linux sees MIME types, so if Hot.Chick.Blows.Brother.mp4 is a virus, it shows up with a Windows (MZ) binary icon, not a media icon 😉... unlike Windows which only recognizes extensions 😒.
Microsoft, in their infinite wisdom, also decided that file extensions should be hidden by default. So you won't even see that you downloaded TaylorSwift_1989_TaylorsVersion.exe instead of TaylorSwift_1989_TaylorsVersion.mp3 unless you changed that setting ahead of time.
Wait.. Real?? I guess its always been a part of the first round of changes I've always made to Windows. Crazy how much I've normalized fighting the software I use.
Anyway, that's wild. What a just bad and unsafe decision.
And this only gets worse, since audio file tags (and I believe video files as well 🤔) include album art nowadays, so it has an icon that is the album art... exe's also have custom icons, so 🤷...
That's not a Linux thing. It's just whatever desktop shell you chose to use and various shells behave in various ways. The reason this might be safer in most Linux distros is that you're discouraged from executing things under a privileged user which means that malware can't make significant changest to your system easily. If you do the same in windows, you'd be just as safe.
Not exactly... I mean, yes, you're right about the privileges thing, but Windows has a lot more security holes than Linux (or any POSIX based OS for that matter). The root of the problem, as always is the distant Windows relative, DOS... no user space notion whatsoever... and Windows NT has dragged these issues for decades now, all because MS made (bought) DOS and distributed it.
My memory is fuzzy and I don't know the correct words to research it, but I am pretty sure that depends on the DE.
Either KDE Plasma (dolphin) or GNOME (nautilus) uses the extension iirc. Maybe that changed though.
If you're feeling even more paranoid, go with something even more obscure like Plan 9 from Bell Labs. It's Unix-like but differs so much from it that a Unix or Linux type malware would do nothing to it.
You guys are quick to forget that Wine (Wine Is Not an Emulator) is, in fact, not an emulator. Most windows ransomware will successfully encrypt your files if ran with wine.
False sense of security. You accidentally downloaded a virus that doesn't work on your system... What kind of habits and hygiene are you rolling with on a day to day basis?
so, I had a pendrive that a friend borrowed once. later on another friend used it and said it had virus. I simply couldn't know since I was on GNU/Linux.
Way back in 2003, I had a school project partner over to do some work on a project. They had a floppy that was infected with some malicious stuff and had planned to utterly trash my computer with it. I only found out at a later date because some guys were asking me questions about my computer, and someone spilled the beans whenever they realised that my computer wasn't infected and was indeed still functioning completely fine....