[NMLUG] Oooooh... wormy Linux!

[qirien at icecavern.net (Andrea Landaker)]

> My actual point is, why not run a background A-V utility just in case?

Well, think about the possible ways to get a virus in Linux.

- through a service vulnerability (these are usually fixed very quickly, and 
if you set them up right the virus would still only have access to whatever 
user that service runs as)
- through opening an e-mail attachment that for some reason had a linux virus 
on it (even then, it would only affect the user that opened it, and since 
nobody uses Outlook, it would have a harder time spreading.)
- through someone hacking into your system and putting a virus in a startup 
script or something (if someone's hacked into your system, then you have 
bigger problems to worry about).

In essence, Linux anti-virus protection is a) applying security patches and 
properly securing your machine (which you should be doing anyway), and b) not 
downloading and running viruses (since there aren't that many anyway, and 
most linux users tend to be savvy about viruses, and Linux e-mail programs 
make opening viruses a bit harder, this isn't that big of a deal).

If you look at the handful of Linux viruses on a website like McAfee's, you'll 
find that they either take advantage of server vulnerabilities, or require 
the user to run the virus itself.  So regularly checking for security updates 
is probably a much better way to avoid Linux viruses than using a virus 
scanner.

-- 
Andrea Landaker
http://www.icecavern.net/~qirien/