Re: linux safe from viruses?

[Atul Chitnis <achitnis@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Sat, 31 Jul 1999, rahul nanda wrote:

>  I would like to know whether linux is safe from virus attacks?

This is a common question, and answered often, so maybe a glance at the
archives would help.

Let me make this clear - the concept of a "virus" is largely a Windows/DOS
based one, since these operating systems do nothing to protect a user from
system damage by a malicious program.

Under *nix (and all responsble operating systems), the concept of
permissions prevents a malicious program from damaging the system (unless,
of course, you chose to run apps as root, in which case you have no
protection at all).

To prove this to yourself, log in as an ordinary user (not root), and run

rm -f /etc/passwd

which will fail. 

Also, because *nix prevents low level disk access, you can't get hit bys
something "going down to the metal" either.

Of course, all this assumes Linux is in charge. A Virus that activates
when you are running Windows can destroy your linux partition (as we
recently witnessed when the CIH virus triggered and wiped out someone's
disk - Linux and all).

Atul



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