Linux and malware question?

Question

Yes, I know many banks and government orgs that use Linux, or Unix have been breached. My own bank has been, and they use a purely Linux system. However the attack only succeeded because someone failed to change some defaults.

My employer has two networks. One is purely RedHat Linux, and the other is Windows. The Windows side has been breached several times. The RedHat side has never been breached.

I am a windows developer, and an embedded developer. I have within the last year been developing using embedded Linux. I am only very recently thought about using Linux on x86 computers. I plan to go with RedHat, and for my brother I plan to install Unbuntu because he is not all that computer savvy.

My question is this: Is there a history of successful internet attacks on personal Linux systems? I have not encountered any anti-virus software for Linux. I would think the fact that all the software is open source would make malware way too easy to create.

Answer 1

There have been a few successful internet viruses targeted at Linux. However, Linux is a much less hospitable environment for virus programs, and it is considerably more difficult to write malware that can seriously damage a Linux system.



There are a few AV programs for Linux, many of them are for server systems and prevent Windows viruses from bing forwarded from Linux mail servers



The open source nature of Linux actually makes malware harder to create, as the source is available security programmers as well as to the malware programmers, and the deployment systems favor the security updates over any malware.



It boils down to a few simple differences in the system designs. One important difference is to be found in how each system identifies executable files. Windows uses a file extension and the PATH environmental variable to determine a file as an program. Many Windows viruses and worms take advantage of this to install themselves on a system. Additionally Windows uses a unified scripting language that can be auto0executed from many applications, embedded in many documents and has extensive access to system level functions.



Unix and it's derivatives (including Linux) use a subset of the file permissions attributes, along with the PATH variable to identify executable files.



Before maliscious software can infect a asystem, it execute as a program. Windows makes this easy. Linux makes it difficult to execute a program without the user's knowledge, and with few exceptions, programs run by individual users have no direct write access to global system resources under Linux.



There is a common misconception that Linux is not targeted as much as Windows because of its 2 or 3 percent market share. Since only about 2 percent of all Linux installations are commercial distributions, and the market share figures only account for license commercial systems, the market share figures are very misleading. A more accurate estimate of Linux usage, based on survey sites of the internet indicate that between 20 and 30 percent of cumputers currently deployed us some form of Linux.

Answer 2

2

Answer 3

The Linux kernel has a Firewall that loads at Runlevel 3. The General Computer user only gets their software from the repositories and thus don't have to worry about malware. Apparmor has also been implemented into Kernel 2.6.36, which makes it much more secure. You can use Apparmor (Red Hat prefers SELinux) to secure the OS. You can also install ClamAV & ClamTK (The GUI Frontend)



I also recommend that you try Linux Mint for your brother: www.linuxmint.com

Answer 4

Unix systems (basicaly linux and mac) has a lot less probability to be pwnt by malware than windows, which is getting harrased 24/7. As the prevorious guy said, no point for ppl creating viruses to focus on unixex, which makes them safer than windows anyways. And to ur question- never heard of anY.

Answer 5

Rootkits and bots are always a problem, there is software to help find them (chrootkit and rootkit hunter for rootkits, bothunter for bots) I don't know about redhat, but ubuntu uses the linux 2.6 kernel which has address space randomization, making exploits much harder to create (and use without the legitimate user installing malware themselves).

Answer 6

There has not been any wide-spread malware for Linux. There have been some concept projects and even a worm or two, but nothing significant. It's still too small a target and the people who use it are better educated about security.

Answer 7

I do not have direct revel in. However, one of the vital Linux specialists on the LUG I used to wait had a few direct revel in! As I recollect, he had installed his pc to run Windoze in a digital laptop. Then he determined to run a pandemic in his digital Windoze envrionment. The effect used to be that the virus hosed his laptop. I make an apology considering the fact that I do not recollect the main points, however I recall the tale so good l- simply now not the main points!

Answer 8

the target is to small , it is not win or win 7