12-26-2019, 09:08 PM
(12-24-2019, 10:36 AM)ijmorlan Wrote:(12-23-2019, 10:28 PM)danbrotherston Wrote: "Old but stable" = unpatched security flaws.
Yes, it depends on what you mean by "version"...presumably (hopefully) security patches are being done.
Whether that matters depends on the system design. In a typical embedded system, most vectors for malware don’t exist. The network connection can be directly to a master controller; there can be no USB ports or accessible removable media storage devices; and so on.
A big factor is that things like USB drives, file sharing and web servers are not integral to the system. The access they get, and the versions of drivers and servers can be tightly managed. Plugging a USB drive into a USB port does not necessarily trigger any action, and certainly not run code that is present on the USB drive, for example.