On Sun, 12 Jan 2003, Jord Swart wrote: > All, > > I know the the amount of virusses on Linux is close to zero, nevertheless I > was wondering if you guys know of a GPL-ed virusscan for Linux? I know McAfee > has one for Unices available, but I would rather not use it. > > Second question to it: do you actually use one? >
Linux is meant to be attack-proof, its concept is different from that of windows where you let another piece of software to guard your system against attacks. On the other hand linux is not very attack-proof should you use root account on regular basis - but that case is so stressed in the litarature that very few users (apart of those who make their first steps with linux and as they describe "want to feel power under their fingers") actually use root account for their daily tasks. As a linux user you also has very little opportunity to get software from an unknown source - take Debian as example - nearly all that takes place in unix development is there in that or another repository - well packaged, maintainer-signed (and this person isn't just someone who's happend to write correct control and makefiles). Not to compare to windows world - where all you get is or pirated software, or not well written shareware/firmware (turning out to be also spyware): results after sometime of using it you'll be forced to reinstall the system or clean up with a software or so - that's why sometime ago I gave up the windows world, but nevermind... I want to point out that as well as in windows world the danger of using a malicious written program exits in linux too. Though the possibility of using a friend-handled program in linux is less because both of them can download it from a well-known repository. The virus scanners for linux are mostely used to scan incoming mail for windows clients. There was only one example when I was infested with a virus/trojan (whatever it was) - OpenSSL has a hole and if you had apache-ssl/mod_ssl and gcc both installed the buffer overflow soon got exploited. Nevertheless, I don't thing we'll need a virus scanner soon. Not unless it's (linux) more common on desktop where the user is not forced to be a admin and a user at the same time. Linux, however, used in prodution environment must be properly audited. It's easy to make updates with dselect but I don't think you might trust it ultimately if you think about business - you would have to hire people to make decisions about updates - to take responsibility of how the system performs and installation of software from other sources - just like you'd do if you were running a commercial system. knight > Thanks very much, > > Jord > > > -- > To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] > with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] >
