ClamAv: is anyone paying attention?

Scott Kitterman ubuntu at kitterman.com
Mon Nov 20 17:41:00 UTC 2006


On Mon, 20 Nov 2006 09:27:21 -0800 "Edward Craig" <epcraig at gmail.com> wrote:
>So far, there have been exactly zero Linux viruses, perhaps three
>worms, none of these able to infect Ubuntu.
>Sorry, but so far nobody has developed adware or spyware for any Linux, 
either.
>I suppose somebody could be developing any or all of these, and it
>might be a cool thing as a proof of concept, but nobody's found any
>way to MAKE MONEY FAST! by hostile cracking of Linux. Yet.
>Part of the problem is that no GNU/Linux developer has been offered
>any incentive to develop any of these. The other part is all of these
>developers use this platform themselves, and some influential
>developers are downright paranoid about what they'll allow their
>computer to do, especially at the behest of unknown code.
>It's not that there can be no Linux viruses, but nobody's seen one.
>Really, nobody's yet figured out why to write one, but it took a while
>to figure out a way to make viruses profitable in the fist place, and
>it took criminal ignorance on Micosoft's part to make viruses, or
>malware in general, possible.
>But ClamAV is necessary for scanning any email you send or relay to
>Windows boxes (as Google recently found reason to notice).

Yes and what the OP should do is install clamav and tell the client that it 
has anti-virus protection (this will be true).  I'm personally confident 
that if a Linux virus threat emerges, clamav will cover it.

Scott K




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