Virus / Trojans for Apple and Linux

I saw an interesting piece on Techspot regarding cross platform malware. It seems like the Linux safety factor is heading south. I suppose with contributors counting in multiple thousands it would be unnatural not to have a bad apple or two at work.

Is there some kind of oversight on the depositories to check the contribution quality / security?

Having not seen the article you are talking about, I can't make a specific comment. There have been a few examples of malware that could get onto a linux box though over the years. They are few and far between. Probably mostly due to the size of the user base.

But any I've heard of could only mess files your user account has access too. For them to truely embed themselves, the user would need to be running as root, or somehow give the malware root access. This might be done by a popup asking for the root password, and not realizing what they were authorizing.

The most recent exploit I know of that could get something on a linux box, was the recent java zero day exploit. The flaw in it allowed malware to be installed on any machine with the jvm installed, via a website exploit.

The only time root mode is enabled on my machine is for Yast to do it's work, or the odd command line requrement for a specific task. Even so, for sensitive tasks such as banking I use the CD based LPS distro with a dedicated thumb drive for the data, so I feel reasonably secure.
The old belt + suspenders approach.

A live CD is probably a good idea. Startup, do your banking, and shutdown so less chance of drive by attacks from other sites. I will admit to not worrying about it to much. I even log into my bank account with Windows sometimes.

I haven't caught a virus in years, but see no point in taking a risk with banking, and other sensitive stuff. I'm surprised how often I get warnings about risky web pages from the WOT plug in, even though I don't go to the dark side.

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A live CD is probably a good idea. Startup, do your banking, and shutdown so less chance of drive by attacks from other sites. I will admit to not worrying about it to much. I even log into my bank account with Windows sometimes

That is what I do but I don't use a jump stick.(I will now)

I was going to ask about this topic and wondered if there was a virus for Linux as I had a problem that much resembled a virus a while back having my identity stolen and not sure who or how.

I do not do ANY banking on ANY window$ machines.

I understand that there were instances of virus for Linux in the past, and no doubt will be in the future. By the time these things are caught, usually the damage is done, despite claims of 0 day detection, etc. For sensitive data I prefer the USAF's LPS distro. It won't write to a hard drive, but can save data to a USB stick.

How can it be tested, detected and then removed?

Is anyone running any antivirus on their linux systems?

There is a decent article here: http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/free-linux-antivirus-programs/
and here: http://www.tuxradar.com/content/get-best-virus-scanner-linux
The only open source scanner I could find is ClamAv, and Linux Malware Detect released under the GNU GPLv2 license: http://www.rfxn.com/projects/linux-malware-detect/

Personally I'm not fond of AV programs born from Windows experience, and have not tried any of these for Linux. I rather install a fresh version of the distro from time to time.

Most of the Linux AVs I've seen the in the past were just to run on mail servers and try to protect Windows clients.

One of the big deciding factors for LInux/against widows was the not needing to run malware detectors vs. spending all my time online keeping up with virus signatures, etc., especially when I was on dial-up. I fept track one month and I literally spent more than half my time online just updating anti-malware stuff. (This *was* on dial-up, remember.) Finally decided I'd rather spend the time learning a new OS. Much better now. Of course, that was when I was younger and was able to learn new stuff. Now I've forgotten most of it and have to attempt to re-learn it every time I want to do anything out of the day to day routine. Growing old is not for sissies. No wonder I'm known as an old curmudgeon.

Don't know if I have a Trojan on board or not but my system slows to a complete halt more frequently than before needing a power off reboot and I have had some issues that are similar to an infected Win. machine.

Now it could be a glitch in the O.S. but I am not sure.

I too like to do a fresh install from time to time (when I have the time) and I'm due for one now but usually I will boot with live Knoppix for sensitive transactions.

One thing that does happen occasionally upon boot is that Suse will stop at a prompt login asking for my root. If I enter it then enter EXIT, boot finishes normally.

That kind of sounds like a memory leak or something findotr.

findoctr wrote:

One thing that does happen occasionally upon boot is that Suse will stop at a prompt login asking for my root. If I enter it then enter EXIT, boot finishes normally.

The only time I have seen this is during some updates to the kernel. (At least I hope that's all it was.) One needs to be a guru to really know what's going on behind the scenes.

No updates, just happened "3" times in a row (last three boots) and is getting more frequent.

I was going to try an update with 12.2 but think better to do a fresh install. (again)

How is 12.2 ? Any bugs to speak of?

12.2 is very solid, an excellent distro. Initially I had minor problems with the boot screen, but as of the latest update last week, even that corrected itself.
I had my share of problems with 12.1, bad enough to revert to Fedora for a while, as I just don't have enough experience to correct any significant problems.

A fresh install is always my preferred method. Updates always seem to leave stuff behind that causes problems sooner or later.