LinuxSA Mailing list archives

  From: Rick Marshall <rjm@herzfeld.com.au>
  To  : David Newall <davidn@rebel.net.au>
  Date: Mon, 29 Mar 1999 14:08:51 +1000

Re: Viruses

David Newall wrote:

> >> Does Linux get viruses?
> > Nope.
>
> Theoretically yes.  Just because nobody has bothered to write one
> (yet, and only to our knowledge) in no way means that it can't or
> won't happen in the future.  I contend that believing Linux to be
> proof against viruses would be a huge boon to virus writers.
> Complacency on the part of system administrators is a virus writer's
> friend.
>
> On the topic of viruses, or rather on a related topic, I might just
> remind the old hands, and educate the younger amongst us, of the
> infamous Internet Worm.  Not a virus, in that it did not propogate
> by modifying binaries; but never the less it shut down enormous
> parts of the Internet back in the early 90's (or was it the late
> 80's?)  This was a program which exploited widely known and long
> ignored security holes in a number of Unix network features, those
> including sendmail and fingerd.
>
> One of the more interesting methods of attack was to send a specially
> crafted string to fingerd, that string being known to overflow the
> buffer used to gather the request, and resulting in fingerd executing
> "worm" binary code.  (Fingerd runs as root, so this was the keys
> to the kingdom.)
>
> To summarise: The Internet Worm did shut down large parts of the
> internet; and it relied upon widely known and long ignored security
> flaws.  Had security experts and Unix vendors not been complacent
> for so long, the Internet Worm would not have "succeeded".
>
> --
> Check out the LinuxSA web pages at http://www.linuxsa.org.au/
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Correct me and flame me if I'm wrong but,

viruses need somewhere to hide. M$ has places for viruses to hide in the
layout of their filesystems and binaries (exe). Linux doesn't have
somewhere for the virus to hide. Therefore only worms and trojans and
these are a separate problem altogether. i.e. not transmittable just by
sticking a disk in the computer.

Rick

--
mailto:rjm@herzfeld.com.au <=>  RICK MARSHALL  <=> http://www.herzfeld.com/isl
   International Software Laboratories Pty Limited - Australia, New Zealand
     Footwear: Retail Management, Point of Sale, Wholesale, Manufacturing
    (-: All in Linux :-)   (-: On the Web :-)   (-: All in UNIBASE 5GL :-)



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