All Things Microsoft > Microsoft as a Company
A Good Start at Eliminating Virus Attacks Against Your Computer.
choasforages:
but as the fortune file goes, lindows is whats gonna take off
beltorak0:
If a stupid linux user runs a "cute" program sent by a "friend", said program can exploit a bug in the kernel and gain root privilages.... see http://www.ryanspc.com/index.pl?page=exploits
under the link "ptrace24.c Shieze. Time to update my kernel...
-t.
voidmain:
Ok, what kernel am I running? Right, you don't know. It would be *very* unlikely that a virus is going to make any headway on Linux systems because Linux is extremely diverse. Each distribution runs different patch kernel versions and patch levels. It's "highly" unlikely that a stupid user is going to run such a program, and if they do the system be configured in such a way that the program is lucky enough to be able to exploit it. Go ahead and write a virus using this exploit and see how far you get. BTW, kernels <2.4.9 are now fairly old. RedHat 7.3 is at 2.4.18+.
Sure it is not impossible, but highly unlikely that a virus will ever do a lot of damage because of the combination of good security and diversity in configuration. With Windows it is easy, low security, every system is virtually the same.
choasforages:
yeah, like my kernel versin is 2.4.19-ChoasNETOS-JMK-try3
thank god for gentoo's kernel patch
DC:
quote:Originally posted by VoidMain:
Viruses run in Linux as a normal user can *not* scramble system files and executables without root access. Only root has access to the binary executables on a Linux system. Hence a virus can not propogate itself by the definition of a virus in Linux. That is, it can not attach itself to other executable files, it has no permissions to do so. Most (not all) of the Oulook problems are actually "worms" or a combination of worms and viruses.
--- End quote ---
My point is that it can access user files - like documents etc - and damage those. Plus, it can make it so it excutes on login or whatever.
In business world, who do you think owns the most important files? Root, with system files that keeps the system running, or the users, who own the actual data that keeps the business running?
And normal users CAN own binaries. They just usually don't. Or not the important ones, anyways (I own a few files on my computer - "hello" for example :D )
Viruses may change in a Linux-world, and they may very well be much less dangerous. But they WILL exist and do damage.
quote:
Now, having said that, the new Lindows OS (ick) will be *very* susceptible to viruses because it defaults to having everyone use the system as "root" and the "root" user has no password (duh! duh! duh! duh!). Lindows will probably be the worst thing that has ever happened to Linux since it began. Hell, at least Apple was smart enough with OSX not to have normal users log on to the system as root. Why Lindows and it's brain dead CEO ever had this brain cramp I'll never know. It completely goes against the most basic security rule of UNIX.
--- End quote ---
Unfortunatly, this is true.
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