Torvalds creates patch for cross-platform virus

[John.Michael.Kane]

Linus Torvalds has had an opportunity to examine the testing and analysis by Hans-Werner Hilse which we reported on yesterday, and has blessed it as being correct. The reason that the virus is not propagating itself in the latest kernel versions is due to a bug in how GCC handles specific registers in a particular system call. He has coded a patch for the kernel to allow the virus to work on even the latest Linux kernel.

Click Here! http://software.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=06/04/18/1941251&from=rss

[PapaWiskas]

Ummm...can some one translate this for us simple minded people.

Is what he did a good thing or a bad thing? Some clarification for me would be awesome. Thank you.

[Jason_25]

It's a good thing because it was a learning experience for all. It was a bad thing if you feel this virus is dangerous, but I don't think it has any real payload, and they basically proved that it was a re-hash of an old linux virus.