[ubuntu-za] VIruses!!

[Raoul Snyman]

On Thu, 02 Jun 2011 17:20:43 -0400, Lee Sharp wrote:
> For the record, this is not totally true.  There are some nasty browser 
> based bugs that will infect Ubuntu, but not many.  Eventually there will

> be more.

What browser-based bugs (I presume you mean viruses?) are you talking
about? The only way you can actually mess up your Linux box is if you run
the virus as root, which would have to be a manual thing on Ubuntu.

The reason Linux is mostly impervious to viruses (aside from the fact that
it's not Windows), is that in order to really mess the computer up you need
to set the virus' executable permissions, and then run it as root. The
worst a virus could do when not run as root is infect your home directory,
in which case you simply create a new user, delete the old user and the old
user's home directory, and you're back to a clean PC.

There's a really interesting write-up on one of the first Linux viruses, a
virus called Bliss:

  http://math-www.uni-paderborn.de/~axel/bliss/

If you're wondering why you've never heard about it, it's because it has
never actually gotten anywhere thanks to Linux's security model.

-- 
Raoul Snyman, B.Tech IT (Software Engineering)
Saturn Laboratories
m: 082 550 3754
e: raoul.snyman at saturnlaboratories.co.za
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