On Tue, May 17, 2011 at 22:59, NIKHIL BANSAL <[email protected]> wrote: > This is a question I want to ask after I surprisingly found some > antivirus packages in my fedora repository. what is the basic purpose > of these antivirus package as some of them described as for online > attachment scanning. what if I don't have installed these packages ?
There is nothing to be surprised. Linux kernel is vulnerable to virus or security attacks as Windows kernel may be more than that. Its just that millions of users are using are WINDOWS operating system, the attackers don't get any advantage of writing viruses for Linux because of the user count. So attackers don't want to put much effort on stuff if its isn't really worth it. In the coming days, as Linux replacing windows, its high time one should write a good anti-virus or use one. Linux is inherently viable to instability due to its Monolithic architecture. The development community is actually demanding a partial re-write on some parts as its allegedly bloated. Though the issue on saving the vulnerability in windows kernel they introduced special stack guard. But the shame was that, the stack guard itself was vulnerable. Similarly, the null pointer deference vulnerability of Linux had brought great shame to the development community. Some techniques to counter include address space layout randomization, I think I am going OT. Thats all. Arjun S R College Of Engineering,Trivandrum Facebook : http://www.facebook.com/Arjun.S.R Twitter: http://twitter.com/Arjun_S_R -- LUG@IITD - http://lug-iitd.org/Footer
