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Re: [LUG] Virus scanners??

 

On Sunday 01 May 2005 6:55 pm, jody salt wrote:
Are there any descent virus scanners for linux??

Why?
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2003/10/06/linux_vs_windows_viruses/
So when you use Linux, you're not using a perfectly safe OS. There is no such 
thing. But Linux and Mac OS X establish a more secure footing than Microsoft 
Windows, one that makes it far harder for viruses to take hold in the first 
place, but if one does take hold, harder to damage the system, but if one 
succeeds in damaging the system, harder to spread to other machines and 
repeat the process. When it comes to email-borne viruses and worms, Linux may 
not be completely immune - after all, nothing is immune to human gullibility 
and stupidity - but it is much more resistant. To mess up a Linux box, you 
need to work at it; to mess up your Windows box, you just need to work on it. 
I know which one I'll trust. 

There are companies out there trying to sell you a solution to a problem that 
doesn't exist in the real world. Don't believe those who think that viruses 
follow the most popular OS - BUGS follow the most popular OS, whichever that 
may be. Now bugs, if they aren't fixed, can lead to a virus to exploit it but 
one thing we've seen with GNU/Linux is that bugs like that get fixed real 
fast.

Are you scanning data that is heading for a Windows box?
ClamAV

Are you just trying to cut out some of the junk mail / traffic?
SpamAssassin
(there's far more spam than there are virii)

"Viruses are not a threat to Linux! [1] 
A quote from Rick's Rant on anti-virus software: [2] 
The problem with answering this question is that those asking it know only 
OSes where viruses, trojan-horse programs, worms, nasty Java scripts, ActiveX 
controls with destructive payloads, and ordinary misbehaved applications are 
a constant threat to their computing. Therefore, they refuse to believe Linux 
could be different, no matter what they hear. And yet it is."
http://www.lwfug.org/~abartoli/virus-writing-HOWTO/_html/#FTN.AEN21


-- 

Neil Williams
=============
http://www.data-freedom.org/
http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/
http://www.linux.codehelp.co.uk/

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