Mailinglist Archive: opensuse (3470 mails)
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Re: [SLE] does virus and worms affects linux ?
- From: "Bob S." <usr@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 5 Sep 2003 00:14:10 -0400
- Message-id: <200309050008.31977.rnr@xxxxxxxxxxx>
On Thursday 04 September 2003 09:10, zentara wrote:
> On Wed, 3 Sep 2003 22:38:56 -0400
>
> "Bob S." <usr@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >On Wednesday 03 September 2003 07:18, zentara wrote:
> >> On Tue, 2 Sep 2003 22:26:16 +0100
> >>
> >> The biggest danger is if you have a dual boot with windows and
> >> linux. <snip>.
> >
> >Whoa !!
> >Are you saying that in a dual boot system a windows virus can infect
> > the Linux partitions? Windows doesn't even know that Linux is
> > there and they are different filesytems, FAT32 vs ext3. Mine are
> > even on different hard drives.
> >
> >Please tell us a little more. My Win 98 system is a mess, no virus
> >protection, nothing, and don't really care. Only keep it to run a
> > few games and some Flight Planning software.
>
> I'm sorry to dissapoint you, but you can have some real damage done
> by the windows kernel running. It may not know how to read ext3 but
> it knows something is there. Just do an fdisk in windows.....do the
> linux partitions show up as "unknown" or "not there".
>
> Sadly a virus can be written to do anything anywhere on the disk,
> only if the linux kernel is running, will it observer "permissions"
> and the programs right to write to some area of the disk. Windows
> observes no permissions. So a windows virus can say write a bunch of
> 1's at some place where the ext3 filesystem is. Then you get file
> corruption, and if it targets the boot area, you may not be able to
> boot.
>
> Also, you know not to run "defrag" in windows, when you have a dual
> boot with linux. Many a linux system has been messed up by defrag.
Yep, knew that & don't --Hence the "mess" I mentioned.
>
> It's also becoming possible, for very clever trojans to be introduced
> into linux, from running windows. Say for instance, a clever windows
> hacker wrote a virus which scanned linux partitions for libc.so.6
> and modified it somehow. Then everytime you ran a program back in
> linux, you could be spreading something injected by windows.
>
> The lesson? Do not have dual boots with windows, if you need
> security. Dual boots are risky business.
>
Thanks to all for all of the scary replies. You all have made me very
nervous. I have been OK so far, and since I NEVER download anything
including e-mail into windows, let alone use unknown flopppies or CDs
anymore, I suppose I will be safe until I can finally dump windows.
One more question though, (In the interest of installing my specialized
windows only programs in Linux, if they will work), If I use a "stand
alone" wine, (without using the real windows registry etc.) will that
also be vulnerable??
Bob S.
> On Wed, 3 Sep 2003 22:38:56 -0400
>
> "Bob S." <usr@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >On Wednesday 03 September 2003 07:18, zentara wrote:
> >> On Tue, 2 Sep 2003 22:26:16 +0100
> >>
> >> The biggest danger is if you have a dual boot with windows and
> >> linux. <snip>.
> >
> >Whoa !!
> >Are you saying that in a dual boot system a windows virus can infect
> > the Linux partitions? Windows doesn't even know that Linux is
> > there and they are different filesytems, FAT32 vs ext3. Mine are
> > even on different hard drives.
> >
> >Please tell us a little more. My Win 98 system is a mess, no virus
> >protection, nothing, and don't really care. Only keep it to run a
> > few games and some Flight Planning software.
>
> I'm sorry to dissapoint you, but you can have some real damage done
> by the windows kernel running. It may not know how to read ext3 but
> it knows something is there. Just do an fdisk in windows.....do the
> linux partitions show up as "unknown" or "not there".
>
> Sadly a virus can be written to do anything anywhere on the disk,
> only if the linux kernel is running, will it observer "permissions"
> and the programs right to write to some area of the disk. Windows
> observes no permissions. So a windows virus can say write a bunch of
> 1's at some place where the ext3 filesystem is. Then you get file
> corruption, and if it targets the boot area, you may not be able to
> boot.
>
> Also, you know not to run "defrag" in windows, when you have a dual
> boot with linux. Many a linux system has been messed up by defrag.
Yep, knew that & don't --Hence the "mess" I mentioned.
>
> It's also becoming possible, for very clever trojans to be introduced
> into linux, from running windows. Say for instance, a clever windows
> hacker wrote a virus which scanned linux partitions for libc.so.6
> and modified it somehow. Then everytime you ran a program back in
> linux, you could be spreading something injected by windows.
>
> The lesson? Do not have dual boots with windows, if you need
> security. Dual boots are risky business.
>
Thanks to all for all of the scary replies. You all have made me very
nervous. I have been OK so far, and since I NEVER download anything
including e-mail into windows, let alone use unknown flopppies or CDs
anymore, I suppose I will be safe until I can finally dump windows.
One more question though, (In the interest of installing my specialized
windows only programs in Linux, if they will work), If I use a "stand
alone" wine, (without using the real windows registry etc.) will that
also be vulnerable??
Bob S.
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