The average unpatched Linux system survives for months on the Internet before being hacked, a report recently issued by the Honeypot Project claims.

The life expectancy of Linux has lengthened dramatically since 2001 and 2002, the project said, from a mere 72 hours two and three years ago to an average of three months today.

Honeypot Project is a non-profit that, as its name suggests, connects vulnerable systems to the Internet in the hope of drawing attacks so that they can be studied. To figure out the lifespan of a Linux system, the group set up a dozen "honeynets" -- the project's term for a system that hosts numerous virtual honeypot machines -- in eight countries, then tracked the time it took for those machines to be compromised.

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