With the recent windows 10 EoL news, I was able to move my dad over to Linux mint. But he does a lot of finance stuff. Long ago, Linux had a belief that desktop Linux are not the primary target for crackers but I don’t believe that true anymore since it’s getting significantly popular lately like Europe government migration over to Linux and Libreoffice.
My question would be , given my dad is just as careful on Linux as he has been on windows, would it be fine to do finance like banking and trading (not the fastest kind )?
If not, what would be your distro of choice for that? Even browsers (I installed Firefox and Edge from Microsoft website deb file)
Regarding your edit:
Having read through the comment chains here, your source is a relatively new malware called RingReaper.
This article from cybersecurity news seemed nice and they linked to the actual PICUS security report which first identified the malware, I think.
I’m not sure whether this malware is actually used to infect Linux desktops or if it’s mostly used for infecting servers, or whether it is used at all. I agree that people shouldn’t let their guard down with malware on Linux. Anti-malware programs on Linux are a good idea and it seems there are already projects tracking and combating malware on Linux. I do agree that Linux malware is not unheard of.
Nonetheless you seem to over exaggerate a bit. There is malware attacking servers running Linux but I doubt that many of those would work on desktop Linux. Furthermore, desktop share of Linux is still low, so there won’t be a big incentive for malicious actors to target Linux desktops specifically. The comments you posted here seem more like paranoia to me and do not seem useful, and your single example of a Linux kernel virus seems more like a derailment of the conversation. With that I can understand the downvotes. Don’t take it too harsh either, no need for your witty comment:
lol
Linux kernel malware works just well on desktop Linux kernels, and that’s the majority of Linux malware.
Honestly, when it comes to computer security, “paranoia” is a harsh word for being aware of possible risks. (It’s been 12 years “since Snowden”, and people have already forgot, it seems.) Even Windows desktops are not under constant attack, but still there are reasons to maybe take security measurements on them before you can call them “secure”. And that applies just as well to Linux.