A virus or two

[AV3]

On Nov/21/2010 4:0450 AM, Mark wrote:
> On Sat, Nov 20, 2010 at 8:00 AM, AV3<arvimide at earthlink.net>  wrote:
>>
>> 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.
>>
> Do you have any idea what you're talking about, because I can't figure it out?


I am quite patient in explaining things to supercilious, snide dummies. 
In this very forum several months ago one message reported a new single 
piece of malware capable of infecting both Mac and Windows computers. 
After checking it out, I pointed out that the malware in question was a 
Trojan horse, requiring the victim's password. On reflection, however, 
it seems to me that a Mac user with a Windows partition might acquire 
that malware from a previously infected victim, both of his partitions 
then being liable to infection.


>
> It seems that you need to do some basic research into what constitutes
> malware and how the different kinds work.
>
> Fundamentally, no, a Windows virus cannot infect anything other than a
> Windows system.
>


See above.


> Trojan horses do not "infect" anything, technically speaking.
>


Duh! Trojan horses try to be persuasive. They can include personal 
information to try to get one to act urgently without checking them out. 
They can appeal to an appetite for sex, etc. A sucker is born every 
minute, as your mother should have told you.


> What the heck is a "multi-threat infection" and how and what kind of
> malware "infect[s] Windows directly from the wild?"  What does that
> mean?
>


A single piece of malware that can infect both Mac and Windows 
computers. Since the Mac X OS is based on Unix, it seems possible to me 
that Linux computers might likewise be vulnerable to such malware, maybe 
even to the single example mentioned above. Of course, malware probably 
does less damage the a Mac than to a Windows computer, but nobody wants 
any such damage at all.


Since the malware mentioned above was never mentioned in any Mac forum I 
subscribe to, and never again here, my concerns are theoretical. I 
imagine that malware to have a Mac-infecting component and a 
Windows-infecting component in a single package. Can you imagine a 
Linux-infecting component?


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