[ubuntu-uk] Virus/Firewall protection.....

[Alan Bell]

John Matthews wrote:
> Hi Alan,
>
> thank you for the e-mail, those two urls are really useful. I did check 
> on both, dont much understand what it has to say, but I do know now that 
> I seem to be secure, and I can make it eve more secure if I want it.
>
> I only asked, because I have a program on windows, that suddenly 
> appeared to develop a virus, just out of nowhere. It was. I contacted 
> the developer, and was told there was actually a virus in the .exe file. 
> which kind of surprised me, since I have used this application for a 
> couple of years, and its the first time that has happened. Its been 
> sorted. I just wanted to make sure, I couldnt get a virus or anything 
> else on Ubuntu.
>   
now this is one of the real advantages of community developed open 
source software. Many different people can look at the source and 
confirm there is nothing untoward in it (including yourself). Many 
different people can compile it, in clean environments and all the 
Ubuntu packages are compiled in a clean environment and the executables 
can be compared and verified as being a true compiled representation of 
the source.
Closed source software developed by one person, or a small team, is 
almost by definition untrustworthy.

Alan
> I am a bit anal when it comes to updates, I check on the updates 
> everyday, and not wait for the update manager to remind me. I am the 
> same with Windows updates, I dont wait, and now my virus guard actually 
> tells me that I have windows updates waiting, if I have missed any.
>
> Thank you again,
>
> John.
>
> Alan Bell wrote:
>   
>> John Matthews wrote:
>>   
>>     
>>> I wonder if somebody can hep. I dont have any firewall or virus 
>>> protection on my ubuntu partitions. I am a little bit concerned about 
>>> this. I did install one Called Firestarter, which messed up everything, 
>>> and I had to uninstall it. I just couldnt get around the firewall. I 
>>> know it was my fault, as I just dont understand the way the firewall 
>>> works. I also have something called Firewall Builder installed, I dont 
>>> understand that either, so I'm a bit stumped.
>>>
>>> I run my Ubuntu using the admin log in, should I run it via a separate 
>>> long in that doesnt have admin privileges? Which is the easiest 
>>> protection system that a thicko like can understand and not break 
>>> anything with.
>>>
>>> Thanks
>>>
>>> John.
>>>
>>>   
>>>     
>>>       
>> Hi John,
>> do you mean you log in as "john" and you can put your password in again 
>> if you want to install stuff? If so that is normal and secure, you are a 
>> user with sudo rights. If you are logging on as the user called root, 
>> then you have a problem.
>>
>> In the IRC channel #ubuntu-uk there is a bot that tells us things, here 
>> is what it has to say about firewalls and viruses
>>
>> 12:22 < AlanBell> !firewall
>> 12:22 < ubot4> Ubuntu, like any other linux  distribution, has firewall 
>> capabilities built-in. The firewall is managed using the 'ufw' command (see
>>                
>> https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Uncomplicated_Firewall_ufw), or 
>> 'iptables' (https://help.ubuntu.com/community/IptablesHowTo). GUI
>>                applications such as Firestarter/Gufw (Gnome) or Guarddog 
>> (KDE) also exist
>> 12:22 < AlanBell> !virus
>> 12:22 < ubot4> A/V software is available, however read this to 
>> understand why Linux does not have a virus problem: 
>> http://librenix.com/?inode=21
>>
>>
>> out of the box Ubuntu is secure and you don't need to worry about 
>> hardening like you do with the dominant proprietary operating system. Do 
>> keep up with the updates though.
>>
>> Alan.
>>
>>   
>>     
>
>
>