Anti-Virus Software ? (was Re: fedora-list Digest, Vol 8, Issue 50)

[Alexander Dalloz]

Am Di, den 05.10.2004 schrieb Douglas Bowyer um 20:16:

> > 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.

You did completely misunderstand me if you took my summery as "those who
caught a virus or worm on Linux are too lazy and stupid in general". I
spoke about installing security updates in time (both on Linux as well
as on Windows[tm] systems). Viruses and worms spread so immense on
Windows[tm] both because of historical architectural weaknesses along
with user bypassing possible "secure" working (always running as
administrator), not installing security updates, or if even running
anti-virus products not keeping them up to date.

Though there are certainly security problems because of bugs on any
system, you can minimize them by acting carefully. Saying the usage of
an anti-virus scanner will prevent most damages is as wrong as saying
Linux is safe in general.

Alexander


-- 
Alexander Dalloz | Enger, Germany | GPG key 1024D/ED695653 1999-07-13
Fedora GNU/Linux Core 2 (Tettnang) kernel 2.6.8-1.521smp 
Serendipity 21:00:33 up 5 days, 23:26, load average: 0.57, 0.34, 0.36 
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