On Mon, 18 Feb 2008 15:13:26 +0100 Kristian Rink wrote: > Am Tue, 19 Feb 2008 01:04:57 +1100 > schrieb John Tserkezis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > > > I don't doubt it. What I do doubt is that the windows > > vulnerabilities alone are the reason they're the majority target. > [...] > > If linux/unix had 90-95% of the market, I'm sure they would be the > > majority target for malware. Perhaps not to the current extent that > > windows malware has reached, but still a majority. > > There is no "Linux" / "Unix" to write malware for, but there are > bunches of more or less different distributions and variants one > could/should write malware for. You possibly would be right if there > was one Linux / Unix distribution / platform / whatever at 90 .. 95% > market share, though, but I guess this is even more unlikely than > "Unix"/"Linux" in general being there... ;) >
The linux kernel is pretty standard across all distros. Although there are several different kernels (32bit, 64bit, and SElinux[1] as examples) most of them share a common codebase and just compile different modules in when built or compile for use on different CPUs. The big security point with linux is that each user runs in an area which only they have access to. If they dowload, enable and then run malware. It affects only their area and their own data. The root user is protected in several ways from attack. But even so their is malware which can gain access as the root user if your linux box is setup sloppily. The eqivalent program to the windows virus checker for linux is chkrootkit[2]. Email, windows data stored on a linux server and windows computers on a linux network are all catered to as well. The virus checker of choice which detects windows viruses passing through linux is probably ClamAV[3]. [1] http://www.nsa.gov/selinux/ [2] http://www.chkrootkit.org/ [3] http://www.clamav.net/ -- Michael All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well - Julian of Norwich 1342 - 1416 --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
