https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_malware
I fucking hate the mentality that Linux is somehow completely safe.
Just because it isn't attacked as much because of the low adoption rate among users, doesn't mean it has no vulnerabilities.
125With SteamOS and ChromeOS now having millions of users, Linux attacks will become more commonplace.
IIRC ChromeOS is either built on or can be configured to run applications like a Linux distro?
41Yes, so Linux better be ready, because those attacks will increase.
And sentiments like the one from OP don't help one bit.
19
Malware for desktop users is the low hanging fruit with little rewards. You just hear about it because it's so rediculous easy.
The real money is on servers, so that's were real money/work is invested to develop malware for much higher gains. How successful are they again?
31Not just that but whenever you hear that company xyz was hacked and their data leaked, what do you think was powering their servers? Most likely Linux. Sure, they usually have more things exposed to the internet, but users install way more apps so the attack surface is vastly bigger in home computers running Linux than servers.
12A lot of critical vulns are exploiting cross platform applications, log4j...
7
Permanently Deleted
113Just use trusted repos 👍
We have GPG for a reason.43I don't think that's the correct path. There is a scanner already, called ClamAV, which works well enough.
Virus scanners don't fix the problem though. Android does it better: security by isolation and verification of system components.8The most important part in malware protection is whoever sits in front of the screen. Systems like Android have so many safeguards in place, the only way to get a virus is the user forcing it through themselves, pretty much.
6
There's already a ton of such exploits. Most servers use Linux and many exploits of corporations this had to go through Linux (though many exploits aren't related to the OS at all -- eg, SQL injection is OS independent). I expect it's more common, though, that attacks on Linux systems are either meant to target servers or were personalized attacks that you're not gonna accidentally download.
On that vein, I also kinda suspect that many people who use Linux may be bigger targets for their employer than their personal PC. Which is actually scary, cause personalized attacks are far harder to defend against. I expect the average Linux user is technically savvy. Not a lot of money in try to do a standard, broad attack on such types (I think most attacks on personal computers are broad attempts that mostly depend on a small fraction of technologically incompetent people falling for simple schemes). But a personalized attack that happens to infiltrate a fortune 500 company? Now that's worth a lot of money. Using Linux won't protect you against those kinda attacks.
8I'm surprised it hasn't seen wider workplace adoption.
A call centre I used to work in once scrapped all our Microsoft Office licences and installed OpenOffice on everyone's workstations to cut costs. It was bad for the MI staff because they relied on Excel functionality that OO Calc simply didn't have, but the vast majority of staff could get by on OpenOffice.
My only real criticisms of how they handled this was not giving people any notice, and making us use a shitty webmail app that only booted in Internet Explorer and would sign you out after a minute of inactivity to access our work emails. They could have easily installed and configured Mozilla Thunderbird to give us some quality of life that Outlook once afforded us.
Also this happened a few years after Oracle got their hands on OO, so not using LibreOffice was also questionable.
But still. Think about the shitloads of money you'd save by using Linux in the office.
5OSS is a double edged sword. It's great, but the people looking for flaws that are exploitable are more often bad actors than good. At least that's been my experience working in cyber security. Many CVEs that are responsibly disclosed are found to be actively exploited already.
1
Wine appears in the output of
ps aux.Nervous not-an-emulator noises.
109Have people tried running malware in Wine? Would be interesting to see how 'well' the malware would work.
4The cruder the malware, the better your chances of running successfully in Wine.
Because throwing together some simple executable using inbuild windows functions is much easier than programming something well-build and hidden based on deeper system layers. So your random "I just encrypted all your files because you clicked this .exe, now send me bitcoin to get it back"-bullshit might work well on wine (which is why wine should be run as it's own user with no priviledges to access anything but your Windows programs).
11
winetricks sandbox3
Pro tip: Infect your Windows friends with malware, then get them to switch to Linux
/s
65#unethicallinuxevangelismtips
42Anarchy = War Anarchy = You killed
1
Lol as if Linux is free of malware.
53It was, 25 years ago. Same as Windows' security was absent at that time.
But people never update their prejudices, so all the jokes are from the last millenium.
If you want an OS that is really malware-free, you need to run temple os.
57God wouldn't let you get malware on his chosen OS.
12
It isn't, but you're unlikely to encounter Linux specific malware.
12I've been using Linux for almost 20 years, and AFAIK in all that time I've never encountered a Linux virus. OTOH when I run Windows, I hit a virus within the first six months.
6Sounds like you have bad habits, I've had windows for years and no problems. Just scan with Defender after a download, occasional Malwarebytes scans to make sure, and you're pretty safe.
Most viruses are written for windows but that doesn't mean you're just instantly safe. You can bet as Linux grows they'll see far more.
8
— When the Indian Amazon support guy sees you're a junior on your first week and tells you to execute a script to install a software for a video call with him. And you do, but it needs sudo access, so you give it...
— You have sudo power here
Sadly, true story. I never told anyone. My neurons clicked a day after that and I removed everything from the computer. It was too late, they hacked some things but IT just laughed and recovered some backups. They never knew I was the virus all along.
Good times.
2
Security through obscurity is not security
51That's why I use NixOS. Double the obscurity, double the security!
25Say that too loudly, and you might upset the apple crowd lol
24
True story, Linux sees MIME types, so if Hot.Chick.Blows.Brother.mp4 is a virus, it shows up with a Windows (MZ) binary icon, not a media icon 😉... unlike Windows which only recognizes extensions 😒.
34Microsoft, in their infinite wisdom, also decided that file extensions should be hidden by default. So you won't even see that you downloaded TaylorSwift_1989_TaylorsVersion.exe instead of TaylorSwift_1989_TaylorsVersion.mp3 unless you changed that setting ahead of time.
48Or worse, Numb_LinkinPark.mp3.exe just shows up as Numb_LinkinPark.mp3, making it look like it's DEFINITELY a legit MP3!
23It's even worse, since exe files can have custom icons, the malware will have a mp3 player icon in their exe file, making it totes confusing.
15And this only gets worse, since audio file tags (and I believe video files as well 🤔) include album art nowadays, so it has an icon that is the album art... exe's also have custom icons, so 🤷...
7
That's not a Linux thing. It's just whatever desktop shell you chose to use and various shells behave in various ways. The reason this might be safer in most Linux distros is that you're discouraged from executing things under a privileged user which means that malware can't make significant changest to your system easily. If you do the same in windows, you'd be just as safe.
15Not exactly... I mean, yes, you're right about the privileges thing, but Windows has a lot more security holes than Linux (or any POSIX based OS for that matter). The root of the problem, as always is the distant Windows relative, DOS... no user space notion whatsoever... and Windows NT has dragged these issues for decades now, all because MS made (bought) DOS and distributed it.
3
My memory is fuzzy and I don't know the correct words to research it, but I am pretty sure that depends on the DE.
Either KDE Plasma (dolphin) or GNOME (nautilus) uses the extension iirc. Maybe that changed though.3Have no idea, haven't changed a DE in over 6 or 7 years, I use xfce.
2
You guys are quick to forget that Wine (Wine Is Not an Emulator) is, in fact, not an emulator. Most windows ransomware will successfully encrypt your files if ran with wine.
30That is why I always try to avoid installing Wine natively
10How else do you install WINE? Is it possible to sandbox WINE apps?
1
If you're feeling even more paranoid, go with something even more obscure like Plan 9 from Bell Labs. It's Unix-like but differs so much from it that a Unix or Linux type malware would do nothing to it.
29but then the little Wine window appears
22the wine prefix is being updated, please wait...
14
False sense of security. You accidentally downloaded a virus that doesn't work on your system... What kind of habits and hygiene are you rolling with on a day to day basis?
20It's your grandma, you gave her ubuntu and everything has been good for a while.
8
If you use Linux because of this you are just a kid following the hype
15What exactly would be a non mainstream OS?
2Temple
7z/OS?
7CP/M?
3
Downloading a virus has as much effect on Windows as it does on Linux and any other operating system: None.
Unless it exploits a security vulnerability with something that automatically touches the file. Like a virus scanner.
14or a thumbnail generator
5
Next you're going to say https://www.cisecurity.org/benchmark/red_hat_linux exists for fearmongering.
13WINE
Also...Get a whitelisting antivirus on windows.
13so, I had a pendrive that a friend borrowed once. later on another friend used it and said it had virus. I simply couldn't know since I was on GNU/Linux.
though later on I cleaned it with dd.
9I work service desk. This right here is the reason I tell Mac users they need to keep the AV on.
8
I think the majority of exploits in metasploit are for Linux, but could be wrong.
7Malware for Linux is a thing. I see it every day.
5You accidentally click it and wine starts launching:
5What if the virus is written in javascript
5then i will contact the malware developers and rewrite it in rust /s
12Then I'll go back in time and install NoScript on my browser
9
Way back in 2003, I had a school project partner over to do some work on a project. They had a floppy that was infected with some malicious stuff and had planned to utterly trash my computer with it. I only found out at a later date because some guys were asking me questions about my computer, and someone spilled the beans whenever they realised that my computer wasn't infected and was indeed still functioning completely fine....
4Wine
1still has power if you email or share it to someone else after you downloaded it
0
