[K12OSN] Linux viruses

[Les Mikesell]

On Wed, 2004-08-18 at 08:23, Jonathan Carter wrote:
> >
> Certainly that's not a virus? If I do a:
> $echo "rm ~/* -Rf" > coolsound.mp3
> $chmod +x coolsound.mp3
> Then it should do the same as described above. Trojans and virusses are 
> two different horses. Executing *any* alien file is a big security risk. 
> Some script kiddie can easily break your system if he has enough info 
> about it.
> 
> Moral of the story: trust no one.

Backups should be your first line of defense for
bad things happening to your files and this includes
deceptive suggestions as well as typos like the
classic "rm -r file *" when you meant file*.
A big IDE drive on some PC running backuppc makes
this cheap and painless...

There are some attempts at real time scanning
like http://dazuko.org/ that work with clam
and others, but it still sounds pretty experimental
and likely to cause more trouble than it prevents.

---
  Les Mikesell
    les at futuresource.com