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| Newer page: | version 13 | Last edited on Thursday, July 28, 2005 8:05:37 am | by JohnMcPherson | |
| Older page: | version 9 | Last edited on Wednesday, July 6, 2005 9:50:28 pm | by PeterHewett | Revert |
@@ -3,15 +3,15 @@
(By analogy with biological viruses, via SF) A cracker program that searches out other programs and "infects" them by embedding a copy of itself in them, so that they become Trojan horses. When these programs are executed, the embedded virus is executed too, thus propagating the "infection". This normally happens invisibly to the user.
These days, "[Virus]" is an umbrella term for any kind of malware, be it an actual virus, a worm, a trojan horse, or any other malicious piece of code. The boundaries between the types are blurring, anyway.
-While [Linux] and other [Unix] derivatives are by no means immune from malware, both the sloppier system design and the popularity (
and often
sloppy administration)
of MicrosoftWindows means that [Linux] viruses
are a negligible minority. Some reasons for [Linux] being resistant to malware are described
[here
| http://linuxmafia.com/~rick/faq/index.php?page=virus].
[Linux] is resistant, but
not immune, so you
still need to pay attention to [Security | SecurityNotes].
+While [Linux] and other [Unix] derivatives are by no means immune from malware, both the sloppier system design and the popularity and sloppy administration of MicrosoftWindows systems
means that [Linux] [Virus]es
are a negligible minority -- you can
[read about this in more detail
| http://linuxmafia.com/~rick/faq/index.php?page=virus]. However, while
[Linux] is resistant, it is
not immune. You
still need to pay attention to [Security | SecurityNotes].
-Of course, if you run [Windows]
programs on [Linux] in an emulation such as [Wine] or [VMWare], that isolated environment is still susceptible, even if the system around it goes unaffected.
However, it has been
[reported
| http://os.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=05/01/25/1430222] that it is not that easy to run Windows viruses on [Wine].
+Of course, if you run MicrosoftWindows
programs on [Linux] in an emulation such as [Wine] or [VMWare], that isolated environment is still susceptible, even if the system around it goes unaffected. However, just as any normal application won't necessarily run well under emulation, so too may
[Virus]es not be able to. [Practice confirms this.
| http://os.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=05/01/25/1430222]
It is paradoxical only at first sight that Linux is a popular system on which to run [Virus] scanners such as [ClamAV]: there is no danger of infection from [Windows] viruses, so [Linux] is an ideal environment for sorting them out. The ContentScanner page describes how to protect your Windows clients from email viruses.
See also:
* PolyMorphicVirus
* AntiVirus
* JargonFile:virus
* WikiPedia:Computer_virus
