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Malicious Linux screensaver proves any OS's biggest vulnerability is sitting in the chair
Which is true, to a point, but your defenses are only as good as the people using them. Careless Mac downloaders have been blindsided by several trojans injected into torrent downloads this year. Over at UbuntuForums.org, it appears as though Linux users are now being targeted as well.
Packed inside an innocent-looking waterfall screensaver were a few lines of code that tucked themselves away in /usr/bin/ upon installation. While the script did little more than ping a remote server and later use wget to download an alteration to the code, this incident should serve as an important reminder to all computer users.
No matter how secure your operating system claims to be, it's you who ultimately makes your system secure or insecure.
Wield your mouse with care, surfers!
[via ZDNet]
Comments
14
Subscribe to commentsLevel 5Dec 9th 2009 5:50PM
Tell this to all the Mac assholes that are down right OFFENDED at the thought of anti-virus software.
kojo87Dec 9th 2009 7:57PM
i hate when they try to justify spending $1500 on a laptop by saying they don't have to spend any money on antivirus software. one word: Microsoft Security Essentials
PeterDec 9th 2009 9:58PM
@kojo87 - That's 3 words :) But your point is still valid.
N900Dec 9th 2009 5:51PM
Woah. That sucks. More and more people are starting to write viruses on LINUX and UNIX. When will these guys just stop writing viruses altogether? =(
SanjisanDec 10th 2009 4:31AM
In my eyes this is just an indication that Linux has made it big. This should be a milestone for distributions. While unfortunate, this could be the start of something bigger. I had always had a certain lack of faith in Unix (including Macs) OSs security due to lack of knowledge or fanbase or whatever it was that kept them free of viruses.
As for the makers of viruses there really isnt much we can do other than smarten up that monkey that bashes on the keyboard.
Sam JordanDec 9th 2009 7:41PM
Operating systems are only as clever as the people who use them.
Good post!
caseyDec 9th 2009 8:25PM
lol
pretty screensaver though
smi04Dec 10th 2009 4:51AM
Anyone have a link?
just kidding.
motangDec 10th 2009 8:39AM
ahh...damn that sucks. That's and Gnome-look is a good site to, maybe they should check out what is being uploaded to them more often.
GeorgeDec 10th 2009 4:38PM
Doesn't sound like a virus to me.
This is a trojan. Anybody can write a trojan, it's trivial and has nothing to do with the security of an OS, simply the gullibility of a user. If you run some software from a malicious source, shame on you.
Nice thing about Linux is that unless you're crazy enough to run as root, this could only wipe out your user account, not your entire system.
emmanuel_lauron_bautistaDec 10th 2009 10:18PM
The problem is that you can insert malicous code in any f linux services and run it as it seem like it's a part of your servce's protocol. Another problem is that Linux is open source and anyone is open to modify it's libraries and scripts. I hope there will be a sandbox for linux.
JamesDec 12th 2009 5:29PM
+1 for not a virus. Did they somehow manage privilege escalation? No? The software did software-y things (using the network connection without explicitly "asking") after a user downloaded it? WTF? Practically any Linux system is going to scream bloody murder if you try to run day-to-day operations as root. If this *isn't* run as root, the worst it can do is eff up your user files, but *any* OS by definition allows the same thing.
PatrickDec 10th 2009 7:06PM
Windows has always been my OS of choice and when I learned to be careful with what I downloaded from the net and what sites I visited, I had no problems with viruses. A good antivirus program, a little caution, and a PC can be plenty secure.
ApopasDec 30th 2009 9:49PM
No one said there are not viruses for Linux. There are byt they aren't just very effective.
For example take this deb virus.
Can it be effective in my Gentoo system? Can it be in OpenSuSE, Mandrive, RedHat etc etc? Nope since they need to build a diiferent packages with the virus with for specific distros. Ofcourse a virus in a slack package or gentoo ebuild can be effective only if the user wants to install a virus in his syetm just for fun.
So much complexity makes viruses ineffective in the same way it makes Linux ineffective in the goal to become popular in the desktops.
Ok I admit that Ubuntu is very popular so this specific virus would be able to infect the PCs of a lot of unfortunate users. So? Is Ubuntu the Linux? Nope. Just one flavour. It depends on the hands of the users.
-So, is Linux as less secure as windows are?
-Depends. It can be if the users are totally noobs.
-Can Linux become much more secure than windows?
-Sure it does. It can be if the users are not totallty noobs.
If you combine the above questions/answers you can see that Linux's security can be as low as windows' one and as high as possible with the current technology.
In a fortunate world, windows users will choose Ubuntu and other easy distros and then they will be experienced enough to choose more hardened distros, higher in security and compatible with their specific needs.