basic - continued

Knapp magick.crow at gmail.com
Sat Feb 6 21:00:11 UTC 2010


On Sat, Feb 6, 2010 at 5:55 PM, Amedee Van Gasse
<amedee-ubuntu at amedee.be> wrote:
> On 06-02-10 14:26, Odd wrote:
>
>> That is true, but at least a rootkit can't be installed.
>
> amedee at fangorn:~$ apt-cache search rootkit
> chkrootkit - rootkit detector
> rkhunter - rootkit, backdoor, sniffer and exploit scanner
> unhide - Forensic tool to find hidden processes and ports
>
> If a rootkit can't be installed, then why is there software to check for
> rootkits?

You need su to do it. There are no viruses that work with Linux but
you can fool the user into being stupid and letting a trojan into the
system. The basic trojan then needs to find a way to upgrade itself
from user to super user. It can do this by fooling the user again or
perhaps by running a piece of software with a known weakness that will
then force the system to give out su access. It is not easy but it can
be done. Many companies have given out prizes to anyone that could
break their system because they thought it was not possible only to
have to pay off the prize.

The smart user only installs from the repos, does not open strange
emails and for sure does not click on anything in these emails. Last
but not least they have their router and their firewalls set up and
running. They also might have root kit detectors installed and if they
are really careful might have a CD that they can run to check their
system for them because when you boot from a CD you know what the
software is and where it came from, hopefully. I guess you still might
get caught by a bios infection.

The truth is that we are NEVER 100% safe. Back up your data! Run a
tight ship, be smart and well informed!

In Germany the Banks and government are now telling everyone to do
their banking from a live Linux CD and never with MS. It is a smart
way to go. You can surf the net with a live CD also, if you want to be
very careful. I use a copy of tiny core linux on a USB drive for
banking because it boots in seconds and has my browser there. I use
Kubuntu for all my other needs.

-- 
Douglas E Knapp

Open Source Sci-Fi mmoRPG Game project.
http://sf-journey-creations.wikispot.org/Front_Page
http://code.google.com/p/perspectiveproject/




More information about the ubuntu-users mailing list