Re: virus detection
Zac Epkes wrote:
>
> I was unable to see who said there where no Viruses for UNIX based systems, i jsut
> wanted to tell anyone and everyone, im sure there are Virueses for ALL systems of
> anykind, even that old TANDY or whatever you can pull out of your closet/attic
> (hehe im only 17 here) im sure there is a virus SOMEWHERE for it...
Sure, there are viruses for most systems, including Linux.
But when something is wrong with your Linux system, checking it for
viruses is the very last task on the investigation list. Hell, it isn't
even on my list.
The original poster of this thread reported some unusual things
happening to his system, and immediately assumed it must be a virus. I
don't know why he thought that -- maybe he's been using Windows his
whole life and has used his Windows skillz to (mis)diagnose his Linux
system. A common trap amongst newbies.
You see, it all comes down to statistics and chance. How many viruses
are there for Linux? Three? Four? Searching the f-secure site
(www.f-secure.com) brings up two real Linux viruses (Bliss and Stoag)
and some other random junk. On the Stoag page it says that this virus is
not known to be in the wild. Then there's the recent Ramen Worm, which
in my opinion is not a virus at all, but simply a scripted script kiddie
(ie. it is easily stopped if you've managed to keep up with security
alerts and have upgraded your software, or just simply stopped running
services you don't need). Contrast that to how many viruses exist for
Windows. Hundreds of thousands? Millions? Quite possibly. So what are
the chances that your Linux system has been hit with a virus? I've
certainly never heard of it happening (except with the Ramen Worm... but
you already know my opinion about that).
There are virus scanners for Linux... but they scan windows files for
windows viruses! Seems there's no need for a linux-virus scanning virus
scanner.
I'd guess that the original poster's machine was hacked (possibly by
JRRTolkien?).
> Sean 'Shaleh' Perry wrote:
>
> > However, there is no such word as 'virii'. There is one virus and two viruses.
> > The word virus is like the english work fish.
Well this is just getting pedantic... for a start, the plural of 'fish'
is 'fish', so virus is not at all like it. I've used 'viruses' in this
email, but personally I prefer 'virii' because it sounds better. People
call their computers 'boxen', so why not 'virii'?
Matthew
ps. Yes, I know what the differences are between viruses, worms and
trojan horses. Most people these days seem to just sum all of them up as
viruses. This seems to be a source of confusion in this thread as well.
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