Topic: Ambidextrous Linux/Windows Virus

[Mr_Tricorder]

http://computerworld.com/securitytopics/security/virus/story/0,10801,110330,00.html

[Nemesis]

The title of the article : Kaspersky warns of cross-platform virus proof of concept 

Kaspersky is an anti-virus vendor.  They want to find Linux viruses to either sell to the Linux market or remove one of the reasons to migrate to Linux.

Now a different article

A second caveat is that for it to work on Linux, a user has to download the program and then execute it, and even then, it can only "infect" files in the same directory the program is in. Exactly how the program gets write permissions even in that directory is not explained.

So after you download it on Linux you then have to explicitly give it permission to "do its thing"?

And finally, it's not a virus at all. It can't replicate itself, which is one thing that makes a piece of malware a virus.

You have to explicitly download it, give it permission to do harm and then it can't spread beyond the current directory?  So even if I were suckered into doing all this the fact that I install programs into their own directory would mean that this "virus" could only infect itself?  Not much of a threat - at least on Linux.

More of a trojan than a virus.  Rather like calling a tapeworm a virus instead of a parasite which it actually is.  Trojans are more of an "Idiot behind the keyboard" problem than anything else.  You can only protect them just so far.

[Nemesis]

Thou hast just received the Amish Virus

As we haveth no technology nor programming experience, this virus worketh on the honour system. Please delete all the files from thy hard drive and manually forward this virus to all on thy mailing list.

We thank thee for thy cooperation.

— The Amish Computer Engineering Dept. ... Linux user will have to switch to root entering thy root password.

[Nemesis]

I was doing some looking around on the subject of Linux viruses and came across an interesting article.  The Title: Linux-Viruses: An Unpleasant Surprise or a Forecast That Came True?  What was interesting is the article is on the Kaspersky site and is 5 years old.  (Link to article).  The article is about a "a world epidemic of Linux-viruses" that was stated as coming true then.

Quote from the article:

Why Linux?

Modern computer virology defines three main requirements for malicious code to exist within an operating system or application as follows:

    * The environment should be well documented. In order to create a virus, one should know as many details as possible about how the operating system works. Otherwise, creating a virus could be as difficult as making an aircraft without knowledge of the basic principles of aerodynamics.

    * Poor protection predicating the presence of known vulnerabilities in security systems and the ability for the creation of self-replicating and self-spreading objects.

    * The operating system or application should be widespread. Many years of anti-virus practice clearly show that virus writers are interested in creating malware only for a computing environment that is popular and therefore, their "products" can cause mass infection.

Until recently, Linux met all these aforementioned requirements except the last one. Today, Linux's popularity has reached the threshold where virus writers have switched from making the "traditional" malicious code for Windows and Microsoft Office to a new, very dynamically developing area of the computer industry - Linux.

According to Kaspersky 5 years ago Linux was popular enough to be the target of an epidemic of viruses.  Where are they considering that Linux has become ever more popular in that time?  Since I have neither seen nor heard of them I take anything Kaspersky has to say with great doubt. 

For the record I have never had a virus on Windows or DOS either.  But I have seen the effects they have had on others.