Quote:
Originally Posted by Sweetpea
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(Ignoring the Apple references because I run Linux.)
The Staog virus was
fourteen years ago and it was a proof-of-concept only (meaning it was never released into the wild; it was written simply to demonstrate the vulnerability). It only worked on Linux systems that had a particular combination of software, and the involved software was patched within hours of the discovery of Staog. There were
no reports of
any real-world Staog infections.
Or, as
this article puts it:
Quote:
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The reason that we have not seen a real Linux virus epidemic in the wild is simply that none of the existing Linux viruses can thrive in the hostile environment that Linux provides. The Linux viruses that exist today are nothing more than technical curiosities; the reality is that there is no viable Linux virus.
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But in the interest of full disclosure, Wikipedia has a list of all known
Linux virii. But note that most of those were proof-of-concepts, the rest were obsoleted by software updates. None is known to exist in the wild.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sweetpea
I do agree that they like to target windows machines more, because it has a greater spread. But as other OS's become more and more popular, you really think those hackers and virus writers will ignore that?
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Windows has a greater spread on the desktop only. Outside of the desktop, you can't turn around without bumping elbows with Linux. Tens of millions of cellphones run Linux (the
Android OS, a Linux variant, was the US's fastest-selling cellphone OS in 2Q 2010). Your ebook reader almost certainly runs Linux. And by many accounts most web servers are running Linux (reliable webserver statistics are notoriously hard to come by, but estimates of Linux marketshare run as high as
75 to
85 percent. Even Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer puts
Linux server penetration at 60 percent.) And Linux runs 17 of the 20
biggest websites on the planet (Google, Yahoo!, Facebook, Youtube, Baidu, Wikipedia, Amazon, Blogger.com just for example).
Now that ought to be high profile enough for
any hacker. And if the eternal immortality to be gained from defacing Youtube isn't temptation enough, there're the tens of millions of credit card numbers lurking around on Amazon's servers free for the taking -- if you can break Linux, that is.
Bottom line is if you think you're not a Linux user, guess again. Ever google? Linux served up your results. Turn on your ebook reader -- Linux is probably serving up your ebooks. If you only connect to MSN using Internet Explorer on Windows 7, you still had to pass through Linux-based routers to get there. Even if you're cellphone isn't running Linux, your voice and data traffic almost certainly passed through a Linux-based telecom server.
Do you twitter and tweet? Twitter runs Linux. Send an e-mail? Most e-mail servers run Sendmail on Linux. Stop to grab some cash at an ATM? Use that cash to buy a book? Guess what the ATM or the cash register was probably running. Watch the weather channel? Weather report courtesy of a supercomputer running Linux. Use a GPS to navigate to work? You were probably using Linux. Make an investment? The New York Stock Exchange runs on Linux (as does the London SE, which dumped Windows last year after a seven-hour shutdown).
Anyone who thinks Linux doesn't have market penetration just isn't looking in the right places.