AV software mostly scans only for windows viruses, so i am not sure why would you feel more secure using them. maybe rootkit hunter is useful. also clamtk has very poor detection rate and will detect many false positives as well.
best security is backup and some hardening. don't open doors (iptables) if you don't want others to enter. they are closed by default.
can you get hacked in linux? yes. my web server got hacked. how? well a small wordpress plugin i wasn't even using had a security vulnerability. that was reported online on thursday. at that time i checked the server on weekends and ran updates. but they hacked me on Friday. on Friday server started sending out spam and spread the botnet. host spotted unusual activity, blocked it and notified me. for some reason their backup didn't work, so we had to use a year old one in combination with theirs to restore the site.
lesson:
- use a malware scanner - scanner compares my files with the original ones
- use a service that will let you know when you should update and will warn of strange activity
- make another set of automated backups by myself (monthly & weekly)
- lock down as much files as possible to read only
result was a bunch of hackers a day being stopped.
advice for home user:
- careful what you download and from where
- if you installs services that provide access from outside, use a firewall to manage the connections
- if you have a router firewall, utilise that as well.
- use good passwords (password managers will help with that)
- if possible use secure connections (e.g. no FTP only sFTP)
- most importantly - do regular, automated backups. to multiple locations. if possible make an offline backup to unplugged hardware as well. also test the restore process and keep it simple.
plenty of hardening lists like this one:
https://gist.github.com/lokhman/cc71...b2d9264c0287a3
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