Tag/tag.png

Needs Expansion
This article is incomplete, and needs to be expanded. More info...

Tag/tag.png

Duplicate Article
This article covers the same material as another article. More info...

So You Want to Know How to Use Anti-virus Software on Ubuntu?

You've got an Ubuntu system, and your years of working with Windows makes you concerned about viruses -- that's fine. There is no virus by definition in almost any known and updated Unix-like operating system, but you can always get infected by various malware like worms, trojans, etc. If you are an unaware user who does dangerous non-advised actions like login as root. However most GNU/Linux distros like Ubuntu, come with built-in security by default and you may not get affected by malware if you keep your system up to date and don't do any manual insecure actions.

Avoid being Root or SuperUser, see RootSudo. Avoid entering your password to grant higher levels of permission to programs without being aware of having started those programs. Unexpected extra internet traffic is a possible indication. The quoted risk level was at the malware's peak performance.

The following is an overview of the entire list of Linux malware, worms and trojans known at this time, courtesy of Wikipedia:

Keep in mind that it may some-times refer to any kind of malware as virus!

That's the entire list of Linux viruses and worms. Fewer than thirty. Compare that to the estimated 140,000 viruses for Windows, and you'll understand why people say you don't need a virus scanner on Linux.

The Reality

If you are going to trade files in a Windows world, you'll need to scan those files for viruses. You won't get infected, but you may help infect someone else. There are two ways to do this:

  1. Run all the files through a server which checks for you. GMail, Yahoo mail, and Hotmail all have wonderful checking software.
  2. Check the files for viruses yourself.

You can install a program called ClamAV. Install the package. It won't appear in the menu. Run it by getting to a command-line and type in "clamscan -h" to get some help on how to run it. If you really need to use a gui front-end and don't like the command-line then just install "clamtk". See the AntiVirus page for other antivirus packages and more detailed instructions.

Even if you do not trades files with the Windows world it is worth staying reasonably well up-to-date with normal updating procedures. https://help.ubuntu.com/community/InstallingSoftware#Automatic%20updates:%20Update%20Manager

External References

http://www.symantec.com/connect/symantec-blogs/security-response

http://www.viruslist.com/en/index.html

This information was originally copied from http://ibeentoubuntu.blogspot.com/2007/10/so-you-want-to-know-how-to-use-anti.html by the original writer but has been added to from Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_malware

http://www.techradar.com/news/software/operating-systems/how-your-secure-your-linux-system-915651


CategorySystem CategoryInternet

Linuxvirus (last edited 2024-07-30 21:56:27 by inclusive-disjunction)