As of 5 minutes ago,lol,there are only a handfull of so called 'virus'
programs that effect linux/unix according to an article done by Maximum
Linux (linux magazine now defunct, website shutdown, but it will point you
to its U.K. sister publication Linux Format which might still have the
article somewhere on its site). The big 3 were 'proof of concept'
(defintion: they wanted to show that given the right circumstances it could
be done). The big scare about 3 months ago was a program called Lion (do a
search on slashdot.org for details-there was also a supposed 'cross platform
virus') which wasnt really a virus exploited a security flaw in the BIND
program, then installed a rootkit on the infected machine(rootkit-VERY,VERY
BAD...if its installed on your machine, then your 'puter and the data on it
belongs to whoever installed it..they are now the root owner of your machine
and can lock YOU out of it). The best prevention against viruses in linux
(to my limited knowledge) is 1] keep an updated system (as exploits are
found, patches are made) 2] whenever you're connected to the web, connect
from BEHIND a firewall 3] never open binaries from untrusted sources(that's
why most linux users use PGP or MD5checksums with binaries/programs so u
know that they havent been tampered with 'in transit on the web' to your
computer 4] always try to do things in linux as a user, not root-this way
even if a binary goes astray and deletes an entire subdirectory, only that
particular user is affected and not the whole system (as with windows)
I have been told that both McAfee and Norton have linux versions of their
virus detectors, but i havent researched this or how to use/install them
----- Original Message -----
From: "Matt Keyes" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Friday, June 29, 2001 8:44 AM
Subject: Antivirus Programs
> Anyone know any good AV programs (free... for Linux, of course)?
>
> Matt
>
>
>
