On Tuesday 01 Jan 2013 19:29:51 Andrew R Paterson wrote:
> you state "Certainly, on desktop Linux, there are far more virus signatures
> in the virus database than there are known viruses that attack Linux."
> Thats an interesting "fact", pray where did you get it from? particularily
> the "known viruses that attack" linux bit.
Andrew, I think you are being a little pedantic. When most people refer to
viruses, they include Trojans, socially engineered malware and anything else
that can generally break your machine. Similarly, virus scanners on Windows
don't just scan for viruses; they look for all known malware and that is what
the 'virus scanners on Android would appear to do.
> Google has its PLay Store just as Apple has its app store - there is no
> reason for one to be more "vulnerable" than the other.
Natalie et al have already answered this one.
> I remember the days of "Nobody got fired for buying IBM" the hayday of FUD.
> Now it seems the AV producers are doing the same thing.
> You don't have to be a genius to realise that there would be no market for
> AV developers without "viruses".
True, but that doesn't stop the malware authors.
> I am still waiting for someone to detail a genuine UNIX (or LInux) virus as
> opposed to just being stupid and dowloading and running a script "rm -rf /".
I don't believe that the few genuine Linux/Unix 'viruses' (or malware items if
you prefer) are that simple. In my original post, I did say that the only
attack vector on Linux is probably social engineering, but since the average
Android user is not a top-notch software engineer, they are likely to fall for
this every time. I would hope that I wouldn't, but since I am also not a top-
notch software engineer, I prefer to play it safe. Everyone gets fooled now
and again.
> I agree about android running things as a single user, but there is a
> difference with malware and viruses. AV software can find viruses but
> malware is up to the user.
See above.
--
Terry Coles
64 bit computing with Kubuntu Linux
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