Antivirus

[Steve Lamb]

Derek Broughton wrote:
> Wulfy wrote:
>> While this is true, I have yet to see any e-mail malware attachments
>> that can run in a Linux environment.  They all seem to be aimed at
>> Windows.

> I have.  Years ago (back in the days of Corel Linux, so more than 5 years,
> anyway).  I accidentally clicked on a mail attachment in KMail and had it
> open in Wine!  It ran, installed, and naturally did nothing significant...

    I have run into a Linux virus once.  I was working for a web hosting
company a few years ago and one of the machines was acting strangely. 
It took us a few hours but we finally narrowed it down to many binaries
in /bin, /sbin and the /usr side of things had their size increased by
the exact same amount.  We searched the web for the explanation of that
exact increase in byte count and stumbled into an honest Linux virus.

    Now, how it got onto the system could be debated.  I don't recall if the
hole was ever found.  We had several PHP exploits in the past so it is
possible that the vector was a standard break-in and not
self-propagating.  Be that as it may it was classified as a virus and
was on a system in the wild.

    Of course that's the only time I have ever seen such a beastie in my
Linux days starting on Slackware/pre-Bo Debian.  Not bad compared to the
average scan of the Windows boxes my parents give to their exchange
students after just 3 months.  o.O

-- 
Steve Lamb