From owner-freebsd-questions Wed Dec 22 22:42:35 1999 Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from rivendell.mel.vet.com.au (rivendell.mel.cybec.com.au [203.103.154.61]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8606D14F1D for ; Wed, 22 Dec 1999 22:42:30 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from lodea@vet.com.au) Received: (from lodea@localhost) by rivendell.mel.vet.com.au (8.9.3/8.9.3) id OAA28065 for freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG; Thu, 23 Dec 1999 14:50:52 +1100 (EST) Date: Thu, 23 Dec 1999 14:50:52 +1100 From: "Lachlan O'Dea" To: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: virus Message-ID: <19991223145051.L27611@vet.com.au> Mail-Followup-To: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG References: <19991223120143.C1316@freebie.lemis.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii User-Agent: Mutt/1.1.1i In-Reply-To: ; from jcm@dogma.freebsd-uk.eu.org on Thu, Dec 23, 1999 at 03:21:05AM +0000 X-Operating-System: FreeBSD 3.3-STABLE i386 Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Thu, Dec 23, 1999 at 03:21:05AM +0000, Jonathon McKitrick wrote: > > >It sounds like you are trying to make money out of this and not > >release the methods. That's not the way we work. In any case, for us > >viruses are a non-issue. > > I heard it *is* possible to have viruses in Unix (or at least Linux). But > i guess they just aren't popular... yet. I think pretty much every platform in existence has at least one virus that runs on it. Usually someone does it just to prove it can be done. I've seen a man page virus that would probably work on a number of Unix-like systems that have gcc. However, I believe that all of the viruses currently considered in the wild run under one of DOS, Mac, Windows or a Microsoft application. So for all practical purposes, viruses are a total non-issue under Unix. Some boot sector viruses work on any x86 machine, regardless of OS. These aren't very common now days, but you can easily protect against them by setting your BIOS to boot of the hard drive before the floppy drive. -- Lachlan O'Dea Computer Associates Pty Ltd Webmaster Vet - Anti-Virus Software http://www.vet.com.au/ "No, no, there is no why." - Yoda, Jedi Master To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message