> I never hear of viruses in the Linux (or Unix generally) world. There used
> to be the Internet Worm, but mostly, the only attacks I hear about are
> security exploits, holes in sendmail etc.
>
> Are there any Linux viruses? I would have thought that the availability of
> the source code would have been a real boon to the sad individuals who
> write these things. Are there anti-virus tools?
Firstly most people don't install random strange things. This helps no end,
Debian packages, Red Hat RPMS etc are pgp signed too which is also good.
The big thing that makes viruses tricky on a Unix (or any other OS with
sane security - NT mostly included) is that a virus is constrained. So
if I end user install a virus, and root never runs my programs I can
make a twit of myself but nobody else.
There have been two demonstrated "proof of concept" viruses for Unix systems
that (within the constraints above) worked.
So yes its possible. I suspect mathematically you can prove formally that
any turing complete system is virus vulnerable.
Alan
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