Secure Your Linux Desktop With eScan

N/C

The List:

1. The Unix Virus

The Feature:

* Takes only milliseconds to download a virus definition update

The full story:

"You have been infected by the Unix virus. This virus works on the honour system. Please mail a copy of this virus to everyone in your address book and then pick fifty of your files at random and delete them."

AC, This is a scream

Liux virus Scanners should be there for one and only one reason.

For sendmail, Postfix, etc to help keep the traffic clan from windows viruses.

bstadil, glad you enjoyed it. The basic joke is over 20 years old (kinda like MS-DOS, in that way).

The sad fact is that if you dress this up a bit, put a few official corporate logos on it, sign it from the system administrator at the-victims-employer.com, stress the importance of clicking on this security update link, mention an impending threat to our corporate network, and recommend that they forward to people they think might be at risk, this thing could propagate. It's hard to defeat social engineering attacks. Whatever you allow your users to do a social engineering attack can take advantage of. This includes voluntarily spreading malware. And most users have the ability to write to (or delete) their own files.

I'm not sure how much actual damage such a thing could do, as current Unix/Linux net apps do not allow direct execution of code with a mouse click. (In fact, not without a lot of fuss.) But propogation is definitely possible, ala the "good times" email text virus.