Does linux require an antivirus??

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Shelly Ali

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I currently run Fedora and Ubuntu, and I wanted to know if these OS's need an antivirus, and if so which one should I use?
 
I never used one in Linux. I just made sure the firewall was on and I considered that enough.
 
Shelly Ali said:
I currently run Fedora and Ubuntu, and I wanted to know if these OS's need an antivirus, and if so which one should I use?
Click to expand...

Short answer: no, if you're not retarded. Unfortunately, the answer is also the same for any OS, and clearly many viruses are thriving...

Long answer: If you never run as root, and you only install trusted source/binaries, and you're not hit by a 0-day privilege exploit, you will never get a rooted virus, which means you can easily manually clean anything you get. The first two are under your control. The last one is obviously not, but if you aren't a sysadmin, you really don't need to worry about being hit by that.

Using an antivirus is fundamentally a losing battle, as it is a reactionary vs. preventative measure. FWIW I have never installed an antivirus.
 
Not to highjack, just add a simple question that may concern you if you use it:

If you use WINE, could you potentially get a Windows EXE virus to run? Obviously it couldn't do much damage as it is a different FS and structure and non-root. But, could someone use that to start the infection? Write a Windows program to exploit Linux and made to run under Wine?
 
There was a blog post a while back that discussed running (at the time) current Windows viruses in wine.

Writing a virus to exploit Wine isn't any different than writing a virus to exploit anything else. You just need to find a hole in the program, then have the program execute malicious code (embedded in the .exe, or an image/pdf/video file/whatever) that will take advantage of that security hole.

One of the big advantages that linux and other unix type systems have is a good permissions system. Microsoft's UAC was a smart move. If you limit the permissions that a program has, then that makes it much harder to compromise the system.
 
Linux has some antivirus tools... The problem w/ the ones in the repositories, they are not very user friendly (several only having a command line interface). Easiest solution I've found to this, is to simply Install the Linux version of Avast on your Guest OS. It's not as "slick" as it's Windows counterpart, but the GUI is dead nuts simple, and it's easy to install.

Go here to read about it...

http://www.avast.com/linux-home-edition#tab1

If you like the sounds of it....
1. Before bothering downloading/Installing, go ahead and start the registration process, and hopefully when it's done, you'll have your Key so you can use it (unlike the windows version, you don't get a pre-trial before a key is required). Like I said, it's free. http://www.avast.com/registration-free-antivirus.php

2. While waiting on your registration key, go ahead and Download Avast, by Clicking the "Download" tab, in the first link I gave you above. You want to download the "DEB" package. Make sure you choose to "save" the file, rather than Open it.

3. After it's downloaded... Go to Places/Downloads

4. You'll see the .deb package you downloaded there.. Double click it, and that will start the software center.

5. After it loads, click Install, and let it do its thing.

6. Go to Application/Accessories/Avast Antivirus

7. When Avast Starts, it will ask for it's key.. Check your email to see if you got your registration key yet. If so, just copy/paste it there.

Once it's started, update your database, then you can use the "Selected Folders" option, to scan the stuff you downloaded.

Hope that helps.
 
Not to mention it scans for Windows viruses. People install Avast on Ubuntu/Debian if they're sharing files with Windows systems not for their own protection but so they can make sure they're not sharing infected files with someone who could be infected...
 
Yes you should have Anti-Malware software. Possibly not for you, but to not spread disease.
 
I had clam AV on my main server at one point. Used to make it run a weekly scan. I turned it off though since the scans would take over a week then they'd overlap - need to streamline it and add exeptions. I was just doing the entire system LOL.
 
kevinzak said:
Not to mention it scans for Windows viruses. People install Avast on Ubuntu/Debian if they're sharing files with Windows systems not for their own protection but so they can make sure they're not sharing infected files with someone who could be infected...
Click to expand...

thanks for clarifying. yeah i was sharing shit from ubuntu to windows virtual machines...
 
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