On Sat, Feb 12, 2011 at 12:02:32AM +0000, Sam Sharpe wrote: > I applaud your self confidence in the fact you are better at defending > your system than a clever virus writer is at attacking it. I wish you > luck in the future and sincerely hope you are never compromised. Yah, yah... > I however, will be relying on a multi-layered defence both at home and > at work, and that includes running anti-virus. I just don't see any > reason not to add this to my defence measures. Ok, no reason. But do please remember that "virus" on Linux/Unix isn't the same as "virus" on Windows. On Windows, pretty much the whole OS is vulnerable to errors in the OS, utilities, third party software, etc. Yeah, they've gotten better with Windows 7 (Vista, actually), but still. You can't do enough when you're not priviliged, so everyone relaxes security so they can add printers, install software, etc. Boom. On Linux and Unix, you run by default with restricted permissions. To crack the system, nothing less than root access really gives you the gold; and that means you have to find a flaw not only in the systems/services/ software that runs as root, but *also* find a way to get your exploit executed as root. That's a mighty small window (pun intended). It's a totally different design paradigm that makes it very hard to write traditional "viruses" that can attack the system _per se_. So caution, sure; excess concern, not so much. Cheers, -- Dave Ihnat President, DMINET Consulting, Inc. dihnat@xxxxxxxxxx -- users mailing list users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe or change subscription options: https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/users Guidelines: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines
