Safety on the computer has become a very difficult issue. With viruses and malware that either harm your computer or steal your information is common place. It’s not out of the ordinary for the average user connected to the internet to have more than a few issues with spyware and viruses on their system. Linux software currently adds more security for the average user. Even if the operating system was more popular, it would still have more security.
One of the claims is that Linux is only secure because very few viruses and malware are written for it. It is true that there are only a few viruses and versions of malware for Linux. Even if there were tons like on Windows, Linux still has the advantage.
First of all, there is administrative security. In order for anything to be installed to the system, a password must be typed in. It would take the end user to purposely type in a password to install this type of malicious software. If no one knows this password, no one from the outside will be able to install anything to the system automatically making it harder to install malicious software.
What if the end user isn’t aware and still installs this?
There is a package management system that most distributions do that would address this issue. There are real human beings who package the software. This means they test the software and see if there are any issues with it. If it works, doesn’t have bugs, and is free from viruses or malware, the software is put out for you to download. If you only download these human reviewed software for your distribution, you won’t ever run into malware and virus problems.
This doesn’t mean there could never be problems, but at the time being it’s a very secure system to be using.