A virus or two

[AV3]

On Nov/20/2010 8:0923 AM, Gilles Gravier wrote:
> dOUG,
>
> On 19/11/2010 19:56, Doug Robinson wrote:
>> Hello
>>      While browsing at the local electronic toy store the topic of
>> Linux arose. The man claimed that his linux system has had two viruses
>> find their way into his system in the last year.
>>
>>      I have not heard much about nor experienced any such attacks on any of
>> my linux systems .
>>
>>      What is the current state of the virus problem on the generic linux
>> system and should I become concerned enough to actually do something?
>>
>> Thank you for your time.
>>
>> dkr
>
> Short answer is yes. :)
>
> 1) There are viruses for Linux.
> 2) They are hard to write. They require extensive knowledge of existing
> bugs (unlike Windows viruses which tend to simply exploit design mistakes).
> 3) In *MOST* cases they only infect users' files... not system. But
> that's not a SYSTEMATIC rule. Some will manage to get administrative writes.
> 4) For Linux, you find viruses, worms, rootkits, malicious scripts...
> ALL OF THEM.
>
> But... in terms of numbers... there are MUCH MUCH more viruses on
> Windows. In general, a Linux machine doesn't really need an antivirus.
> It's not IMPOSSIBLE to get a virus. But it's VERY UNLIKELY. (Unlike for
> Windows where it is VERY LIKELY).
>
> The guy was probably trying to sell you a Windows system... with a
> valid, but unlikely scenario.
>


Could you be more specific about how one might get infected, please. I 
am under the impression, that it is so far only possible by responding 
to a Trojan horse with your password. Recently, a bug that could infect 
both Mac and Windows systems appeared, but still only by Trojan horse. 
This means that infection of a Windows partition on a Mac could also 
bring infection to the Mac partition. I suppose that this might also 
apply to a Linux partition. My fear is that this principle of 
multi-threat infection could be applied to malware that can infect 
Windows directly from the wild.


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