fedora-list Digest, Vol 8, Issue 50

Douglas Bowyer geoscope at yahoo.com
Tue Oct 5 18:16:28 UTC 2004


> > I'm sure that's comforting--for now. And we all hope that Linux is
> > inherently more secure against viruses of all types. Maybe we're right.
> > But as more people get fed up with "WinDoze" or "Window$" or however you
> > want to spell it, what will happen when cyber-terrorists start attacking
> > Linux directly with virus operations? That's what some of my clients are
> > asking me right now. What do I tell them?

Tell them that the real risk of virus attacks on Linux are small for
now, but if they wish to start working with Anti-Virus solutions there
are currently several... ClamAV, F-Secure, BitDefender being the ones I
have heard the most about... I've only used BitDefender, because I am
cheap...

http://www.google.com/linux?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&q=AntiVirus+&btnG=Google+Search

is the place to start looking...


> Again: viruses are a result of bad OS structures since early DOS (how
> much viruses do you know for BSDs, Solaris or other UNIXes?) and much
> laziness and stupidity on the users side. 

There are (from what I've heard) over 200 viruses that currently target
Linux specifically... much fewer than designed to attack MS, but those
numbers *will* increase in time. "Nature abhors a vacuum". While *nix
have a better security design, no system is flawless. There will always
be exploits. Telling someone not to worry is not a valid answer to such
a question... Telling them they are lazy and stupid if they can't figure
out how to avoid the *need* for AV is also not an option.





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