Over Three Quarters of Polled Linux Developers Report No Incidence of Outside Intrusion, Even Fewer Report Any Viral Attacks

SANTA CRUZ, CA, April 8, 2002 - Evans Data Corp., the provider of market intelligence for the developer community, today announced the release of its Spring 2002 Linux Developer Survey. While security remains one of the IT industry’s top concerns, the new survey of more than 400 Linux developers confirms that Linux systems are relatively immune from attacks from outsiders.

According to CERT, a center for Internet security expertise operated by Carnegie Mellon University, the total number of computer attacks has almost doubled every year since 1988. However, the rarity of security breaches in the Linux environment is illustrated by the fact that 78% of respondents to the survey have never experienced an unwanted intrusion and 94% have operated virus-free.

“What this survey shows is that the Linux OS doesn’t get broken into very often and is even less frequently targeted by viruses,” said Jeff Child, Evans Data Corp.’s Linux Analyst. “The hands-on, technical knowledge that most Linux users possess accounts for this; it’s much harder to hack a knowledgeable owner’s system. Also, because of the much lower deployment of the OS there are fewer viruses being created for the Linux system. It will be interesting to see if that remains the case as the Linux presence in enterprise deployments continues to grow.”

The developers polled in the survey attribute the low incidence of attacks to the Open Source Software (OSS) environment. According to the Evans Data Spring 2002 Linux Developers Survey, more than 84% of Linux developers believe that Linux is inherently more secure than software not created in an OSS environment. Asked to compare Linux’s security to the most popular operating systems, developers ranked Linux’s security roughly comparable in security to Solaris and AIX, two very secure operating systems long trusted by large enterprises, and above any of the Windows platforms by a significant margin.

In other findings, the survey suggests that the penetration of Linux in large organizations continues to grow and that the Web-services applications model is spreading to the Linux community. The number of respondents at firms with over 10,000 rose to 17.6%, where it was only 10.2% six months ago. More than 70% of respondents intend to develop Web-services enabled applications in the next two years.

The "Spring 2002 Linux Developer Survey" is published every six months in the spring and fall focused exclusively on developers creating Linux applications. The primary objective is to clearly represent the attitudes, awareness, perceptions and concerns of wireless developers on a wide range of topics, including: Development Platforms, Development & Deployment Plans, Application Plans, Technology Adoption Trends, Developer Environment & Tools, Applications Languages & Testing, and Educational & Market Resources.

Evans Data Corporation provides regularly updated IT industry market intelligence based on in-depth surveys of the global developer population. Evans' syndicated research includes surveys focused on developers in a wide variety of subjects.

Copyright 2007 Evans Data Corporation. All other company names, products and services mentioned in this document are the trademarks and property of their respective owners.

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