[KLUG Members] simile.d virus

[Adam Williams]

>Reminds me of a 'virus' that someone on another list sent to the list
>about the 'most dangerous linux virus yet'.  I got it from him , infected
>my system, and waited. It didn't do anything.  Furthermore, you had to be
>root to have it do anthing interesting.

What people often forget is that Virii tend to be much more application 
specific than truly platform specific.  Most 'Win32' virii actually 
use/infect M$-Office Document, Outlook, IIS, not necessarily Win32 itself 
(a VxD, the OLE mechanism, etc...)

>oh, well.  It's interesting that there's a way to have dual-infections
>like that, 

THey should do the same thing with applications! :)

>but I would hope people that use linux aren't stupid enough to
>blindly run binaries they get in the mail.

Never underestimate stupidity.

>It would seem to me that as long as you aren't logging in as a superuser 
>nn a regular basis, instead using su or sudo when necessary, 

Or Kerberos V.  COME ON, I say!! Just try and infect this!

>the risk is 
>minimal at best. But beyond that, how can these viruses infect a Linux 
>system if they are dependant on vbs and similar pathways? 

Star/Open Office macros, possibly.

>Email?

Maybe buffer overflow one of the GNOME image processing libraries with a 
JPEG attachment to an Evolution user set to view-inline by default?  I'd 
bet it would be pretty tough.

What would be amazing would be a virus that infected mail scanners.  Then 
I'd be impresses.

>Maliciously coded web pages? 
>File attachments?

See above. 

>Communist spies? 

They're still around?  I thought they had all retired and become screen 
writers for the USA network.

>Evil spirits?

No problem.  Just surround your computer with a ring of powedered iron and 
carve the approriate symbols in the side of your monitor (this is 
much harder to do with the new flat screens, they're so thin).

>I'm not convinced (yet) that viruses are something I need to be 
>concerned with on my Linux computers. Neither servers or workstations.

I'm not concerned, just aware.  I'm certian if a "real" viral threat 
occurs for Linux we will all hear about it quickly and in spades.  That 
would by Billy's dream come true.

>Comments?

Always.