Have you or someone you know/ heard about ever gotten a linux virus on linux?

[kh1116]

I just want to see if anyone ever has...

[amazingtaters]

All I can say is... ANONYMOUS IS GETTING MAJOR LULZ!

[some_random_noob]

No. Hasn't happened to me. The only system crippling disasters I've seen have been caused by me due to my own stupidity (i.e. using sudo when I don't need to or when I don't know what I'm doing).

[K.Mandla]

Nope. They're around, and I think somewhere there's a list of all 40 or so. But I have yet to hear of anyone's machine getting one.

It is, apparently, possible to install Wine and infect it with a virus, and then suffer some consequences. But that should be expected.

[RAV TUX]

I've been sneezing more but that may have more to do with the pollen count then my using Linux. ;)

[Steveway]

All I can say is... ANONYMOUS IS GETTING MAJOR LULZ!

Hackers on steroids?

:)

[amazingtaters]

Hackers on steroids?

:)

Hackers on steroids who plant viruses on your Habbos, and computers, for phun. They're a dangerous lot, and they are known to breed viruses. Usually they just get lulz from n00bz though, so we in the Lunix world should be ok.

[starcraft.man]

Nope. The only problems I've ever had are the self generated kind...

[nowshining]

hackers are not dangerous at all, hackers is a mis used word, Crackers is the word you want..

Altho hackers can refer to them you gotta put BAD in front of them..

Hackers tho is anyone who tinkers with anything - be it physical or non by our standards.. example: u know those people who change change things around - well they HACK files to get it to work..and lolz RAV on that one.. :)

[nonewmsgs]

of the 40, how many are in the wild??

[some_random_noob]

ATTENTION EVERYONE - I have a non-stupid question to ask

How do you get infected by these viruses - Email, websites,downloads etc - how do they get onto your computer? Also, how does the universe repository work, it's community maintained right? Does that make it potentially dangerous?

[Billy_McBong]

my system got many Linux viruses--no wait those were windows viruses, and it was on windows

[Tautoa]

Why would people who write viruses attack Linux?
Of all the operating systems out there, there is an easy option for hackers/crackers.... and Linux isn't it.

[reacocard]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Linux_computer_viruses_and_worms

excerpt (emphasis mine):

Like other Unix systems, Linux implements a multi-user environment where users are granted specific privileges and there is some form of access control implemented. As such, viruses typically have less of an ability to change and impact the host system. That is why none of the viruses written for Linux, including the ones below, have ever propagated successfully to a large number of machines. Also, the security holes that are exploited by the viruses have been fixed shortly after (or more often, before) the viruses started spreading. So the viruses listed no longer pose any concern as long as the Linux system is updated regularly.

[trim17]

ATTENTION EVERYONE - I have a non-stupid question to ask

How do you get infected by these viruses - Email, websites,downloads etc - how do they get onto your computer? Also, how does the universe repository work, it's community maintained right? Does that make it potentially dangerous?

The beautiful thing about Linux is the user model. Ubuntu really sticks to the idea that nothing should run as root. However, you still have super-user privileges, so I guess that the only virus you could get would be a script you download that you thought was legitimate. The way around this is authentication. However, authentication doesn't necessarily mean "good." It just verifies that it is indeed what the source is giving you. You still have to make the decision to trust them.

That's why open source is awesome. The community can see everything that's going on.

[-Phi-]

A year or so ago there were some people who had their desktop wallpaper changed externally, but it was just a demonstration by someone who ran a personal repository that was somehow in a huge list of repositories people were automatically adding. The owner wanted to make the (very good) point that you shouldn't just add any old repository without thinking. You put a lot of trust in the repository maintainer.

So it wasn't malicious, but it could have been. That's the closest I've heard to an active linux "virus."

- Phi

[oldos2er]

Yes, I got this one: http://www.upperregister.com/~charlie/AmishVirus.html

[nowshining]

oh lolz oldos2er I quickly thought you pointed to a link of the virus to get us infected lolz..brain freeze/fog..

and then after reading it..Funny... :P

[kopinux]

it was during the wine days, my wine directory composed of windows dlls and exe files got infected, not a linux virus though.

[Depressed Man]

If I remember correctly a Windows based virus run in Wine will just self proprogate. But it won't be successful in actually doing anything to a Linux system, it just eats up space as it duplicates itself.

[RAV TUX]

Actually I did get a Linux virus and it started with Ubuntu!

see this post for further explanation:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=3339445#post3339445

[some_random_noob]

A year or so ago there were some people who had their desktop wallpaper changed externally, but it was just a demonstration by someone who ran a personal repository that was somehow in a huge list of repositories people were automatically adding. The owner wanted to make the (very good) point that you shouldn't just add any old repository without thinking. You put a lot of trust in the repository maintainer.

So it wasn't malicious, but it could have been. That's the closest I've heard to an active linux "virus."

- Phi

Watch your sources ;) ... guess that's all there is to know? Funny how security firms make so much money, mostly through aggressive marketing and FUD. The idea of using virus-definitions is out-of-date and doesn't work in the modern world. There are too many threats - just close your ports and don't download too much illegal porn.

[DjBones]

From what i gather, most of the 40 virus's are just of the "proof of concept" variety so that linux security can be improved and never ventured into the internet.
I hear they can give you the source code for virus if you want to help in the developement ;)

[DaveAK]

I've been running Windows since day zero and never got a virus. Do I get a medal?

[jrusso2]

I have been running windows since WIndows 3.0 and never got a virus or anything either but I have fixed thousands of PC's with Windows with all sorts of malware and virus.

[eentonig]

Depending of your definition, I heard of one. And it was even posted on this forum.

Some guy rewrote a version of his app to change the users wallpaper when they installed it.

But then, he had a very good reason for it. Because he wanted to warn the users who were foolishly and without any insight, adding hundreds of unofficial repositories to their sources.list. So actullay, that was more a showcase of how easy you could get infected by virii in Linux as well.... if you don't take some common sense in account.

[thisllub]

About 8 years ago on a RedHat 6 server something managed to exploit a flaw in what I believed was sendmail and dumped something that was part of a DoS attack. It didn't seem to do much though.
I did a bit of research on firewalls and haven't had a problem since.

Although Linux is comparatively mischief free, some vigilance is necessary to guarantee it.
To suggest that Linux is virus proof is as incorrect as the claim that Windows can't be made functionally secure.

I still know where I prefer to place my bets though.

[iPower]

please install this virus by clicking and entering your password in the popup but before you do that please email a copy to your linux using friends!

:)

[amazingtaters]

hackers are not dangerous at all, hackers is a mis used word, Crackers is the word you want..

Altho hackers can refer to them you gotta put BAD in front of them..

Hackers tho is anyone who tinkers with anything - be it physical or non by our standards.. example: u know those people who change change things around - well they HACK files to get it to work..and lolz RAV on that one.. :)

You missed the joke I guess. Here watch this (http://youtube.com/watch?v=DNO6G4ApJQY) for a laugh

[bruce89]

I suppose virus writers have better things to do.

Why bother with 5% of the market anyway, especially if they use it themselves.

[trim17]

Plus getting the virus to propogate by itself would be tricky; you'd run into a lot of dependency errors, I'm sure. :D

[bruce89]

Have you or someone you know/ heard about ever gotten a linux virus on linux?

No, but I've had a Linux virus on Windows. Why the 2 Linuxes?

Off topic, but "gotten" is a bloody silly word.

[daveshields]

No.

[kh1116]

Why the 2 Linuxes? oh, just because ive heard stories of people getting windows viruses when using wine

[RandomJoe]

Not a virus, but a worm, years ago. I got hit by the "L10n" worm one night while I was online via dialup. L10n attacked a buffer overflow in BIND, and I had recently set up BIND to provide name services for my home network. Being quite new to firewalls and such, and still having dialup so I wasn't usually connected to the 'net, I hadn't bothered to make sure things were secure. As a result, my BIND was listening for traffic on the dialup connection!

I was streaming a RealMedia broadcast at the time, which pretty well maxed out the modem, so it was obvious something was wrong - the stream started stuttering badly, and when I checked the modem the TX light was on solid as the worm tried to propogate... UH-OH!

Needless to say, after that I spent a lot more time on the firewall and how to properly configure BIND. (Actually, I switched to something better suited to my limited needs.) Had no problems since then.