Re: [debian-user] Virus, Trojan, and Worm
On Wed, 07 Mar 2007 14:36:46 -0700
"Ted Hilts - Thunderbird Acct." <thilts33@telus.net> wrote:
> Has antivirus software advanced to the point that the following excerpt
> from Debian Administration (dated late 2004) is now invalid? I added
> the square brackets and their content.
>
> "Viruses are a fact of life nowadays, be they real viruses or worms
> which require manual intervention on the [be]half of a user to [prevent]
> propogate[propogation]. Unix systems tend to be immune from the viruses
> themselves, but they still have mail queues full of viral messages."
I would say that it's still relevant. Linux/Unix systems are less apt
to be propagators - for a virus/worm to work it must gain rights that
are in most cases that of privileged users. Still, most viruses/worms
(especially the latter) are propogated by emailing the content to
others, usually automatically. Since most mailers on Linux/unix are not
set up to automatically open *and run* attachments, at least some of
the damage is minimized.
I still get a few viruses and worms every so often - the "Microsoft
Update Patch" is one that's been circulating for years - and it's about
200K. Ouch.
If you're on a network, especially if you have a Linux/unix system that
does services for Windows machines connected to it, one really should
have antivirus toolkits on the Linux machine(s).
> had to do was compress the worm infested file and then delete the file.
> If I remember right I had my own approach which was to move the infested
Wouldn't it be easier to have the antivirus software deliver the file
to /dev/null?
> Thanks, Ted
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