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Windows Viruses up Sharply in 2004 378

Posted by CmdrTaco from the as-proven-by-my-inbox dept.
Brad1138 writes "MSNBC has an article regarding the proliferation of Windows Viruses and collaboration among virus writers and spammers. Also mentions the likelihood that viruses for Linux and handhelds will see a sharp rise."
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Windows Viruses up Sharply in 2004 More

Windows Viruses up Sharply in 2004

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  • HBO also announced (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 20, 2004 @01:52PM (#10299953)
    The debut of their new documentary Viruses Up, Windows Down.

    Oh, and before anyone says this is Microsoft/MSNBC bias against Linux, it's a Reuters article available from many other sources [google.com] and seems based on the same Symantec information as the earlier zombie story [slashdot.org].

    • Why there won't be nearly as many Linux-viruses (Score:5, Insightful)

      by rseuhs ( 322520 ) on Monday September 20, 2004 @02:33PM (#10300512)
      [..] before anyone says this is Microsoft/MSNBC bias against Linux [..]

      There are a lot of reasons why viruses and worms will never be such a huge problem in Linux as they are in Windows now:

      • When you install a new Linux box, you usually take the latest version (because it's (almost) free), while a lot of people tend to stick to outdated (and therefore security-prone) Windows-versions. That's why a lot of viruses/worms often celebrate a nice comeback in Windows: After the initial scare, the vulernable machines increase again. This actually happened with the Code Red worm. On Linux this is pretty unlikely as new versions will be used for new installs.
      • Microsoft's patchwork (pun intended) is hard to maintain and hard to follow. On Linux everything is modular: If some program (or the kernel) has a problem, usually versions = are safe. You don't need to upgrade any other programs either. Simple. Easy. Not so on Windows. On Windows you have to deal with service packs which are risky because they change so much that companies even have to test them on test-machines because they can break anything or with patches which are pretty complicated to track (which machine has been patched and which wasn't is pretty challenging.) Therefore Windows-machines are not as often updated as Linux machines.
      • And of course Microsoft's philosophy. While the open-source project Mozilla offered money for found vulernabilities, Microsoft offers money to get virus authors after the damage has been done. And Microsoft (and their following) always plays the blame-game: It's not their fault, it's the user's fault, it's the admin's fault, it's the virus-writer's fault... This doesn't help solve the problem at all.
      • And of course the track record speaks for itself. Apache always run more websites than IIS at any time, still IIS was infected more ofen at any time. MS SQL only has 12% of the market, yet it was the only SQL-database being mass-infected so far (even MS itself got infected - if Microsoft can't secure Windows, who can?)

      Will we see Linux desktop viruses? Almost certainly yes. But they will be pretty rare and not an epidemy like those on Windows today.

    • Re:HBO also announced (Score:3, Interesting)

      by selderrr ( 523988 )
      A question that has been puzzling me is : what if there would pop up virusses in linux ? Suppose this is by some unpatched backdoor that compromises a large percentage of linux distros (which are running in the millions now). How fast could the linux community patch all these ? I mean : here on /., most of us do patch asap and keep an eye open for vulneratibilty news, but as the horde of linux users grows, so will the percentage of dumbasses who think that they are safe by simply having linux installed.

      A

  • This just in: (Score:5, Funny)

    by Control Group ( 105494 ) * on Monday September 20, 2004 @01:52PM (#10299957) Homepage
    In other news, Hallmark reports that the number of holidays requiring you to buy an amusing greeting card rose by 173% last year. This information is further supported by DeBeers' recent finding that more women than ever before expect to receive diamonds on major holidays.

    (Seriously, this information may or may not be true...but can we say "vested interest?")

  • Linux viruses (Score:5, Funny)

    by unixmaster ( 573907 ) on Monday September 20, 2004 @01:53PM (#10299967) Journal
    Porting is always appreciated!

  • Linux viruses on the rise (Score:5, Funny)

    by jekewa ( 751500 ) on Monday September 20, 2004 @01:53PM (#10299968) Homepage Journal
    Does that mean that there will be some? Ooh! Can't wait for McAfee for my box!

    • Uhm.... (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Yes. [symantec.com]

      That's just the first of 3237 search results for "Linux" at SARC.

      • Re:Uhm.... (Score:5, Informative)

        by Lobo93 ( 638514 ) on Monday September 20, 2004 @02:15PM (#10300259) Homepage

        Linux.Jac.8759 is a virus that infects files under Linux. The virus infects ELF executables that exist in the same directory as the virus

        Number of infections: 0 - 49
        Number of sites: 0 - 2
        Geographical distribution: Low
        Threat containment: Easy
        Removal: Easy

        Looks utterly devastating... *sarcasm bazooka attack*!!11!!

      • Re:Uhm.... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by dAzED1 ( 33635 ) on Monday September 20, 2004 @02:37PM (#10300567) Journal
        did you read any of them?
        I just went through and read a dozen (I've read more in the past, just wanted to see if they had changed). All are listed as easy to remove, low danger. All involve someone doing something *really* stupid (like, "once a user runs this program, it writes to all the files in the same directory..." blah).
        NONE are a virus. I could just as easily write a shell script that simply had as its only line:
        rm -rf / 2>/dev/null &
        You wouldn't know anything was wrong until you were screwed. Would it be a virus? No, it would be someone too STUPID to look at what they are running.
        Find a single "virus" in that list that is anything different.
        In windows, on the other hand, you can get viruses just by looking at a jpeg, [slashdot.org] or opening an email, or even just visiting a web site. To be "safe," windows users have to have active virus scanners; all linux users have to do is not have a . in their path, and not run things they don't recognize. How did the file get on the system, anyway? We're *starting* with a breach, when it comes to linux "viruses." If someone can put a file in a directory, they can do far more while they're there (like, modify the programs themselves, change configs, set up keystroke loggers, whatever...why just leave malware?).
        Get a clue, and realize its not just zealotry speaking when someone says Linux, and UNIX in general, doesn't have to worry about viruses. They also don't have to worry about playing WoW, or using MS Office. They're simply different environments than Windows.
    • There are currently a bit over 100 known viruses for Linux. Compared to the 5000 discovered in the three months mentioned in the article. So although there are some, there aren't very many.

      CA does make eTrust for Linux.

      I would expect Linux viruses to rise as the platform becomes more widespread on desktops. It will not be nearly as possible to exploit this platform, but with commercial interest, there will be much more effort possible to do such.

      Now, intentionally distributing viruses is a crime, as i

  • In other surprising news........ (Score:4, Funny)

    by i_want_you_to_throw_ ( 559379 ) on Monday September 20, 2004 @01:53PM (#10299970) Journal
    Water is wet.

  • unsafe at 3GHz (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Doc Ruby ( 173196 ) on Monday September 20, 2004 @01:53PM (#10299971) Homepage Journal
    If that headline were "Fords suddenly accelerating into oncoming traffic more in 2004", we'd see a lot more action than just applause at Gates' empty lies about prioritizing security.

    • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Monday September 20, 2004 @02:02PM (#10300094)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Re:unsafe at 3GHz (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Doc Ruby ( 173196 )
        Most car crashes cause only property damage. There is probably a fair comparison in the waste from computer insecurity to the damage from those crashes. Yet we have decades of car safety laws (which lowered fatalities to today's accepted level), lots of technology and investment to increase quality, and only a veneer of computer security institutions. The apathy probably thrives more because there's not been a publication yet like Nader's _Unsafe At Any Speed_, which was published after almost a half-centur

    • Re:unsafe at 3GHz (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Moridineas ( 213502 )
      I'm going to go out on a limb and say that you think that Bush lied about Iraq too?

      People, especially on slashdot but often in general, seem to have a very emotionally needy definition of lies. How did Bush lie about prioritizing security now? Is it not true that signifigant number of programmers have been redirected to securing existing product lines (e.g. XP SP2). Is it not true that more secure coding processes, such as compiling with buffer checks are now being used? Is it not true that SP2 and Win2k3

    • Re:unsafe at 3GHz (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I have no doubt that Gates, et al take security very seriously. Windows is an incredibly complicated piece of software that mixes old and new code written by dozens (if not hundreds) of programmers over the last decade or so. It is very much in Microsoft's best interest to make their products more secure since the perceived risk is starting to creep towards the point where it outweighs the very real switching cost.

      And your analogy is a piece of dog crap. It is more like saying that Fords have been broke
  • so msnbc reads slashdot [slashdot.org] too. is there any other news today?

  • NewScientist related link (Score:5, Informative)

    by grub ( 11606 ) <slashdot@grub.net> on Monday September 20, 2004 @01:54PM (#10299982) Homepage Journal

    Related article on NewScientist says "[t]housands of zombie PCs created daily" [newscientist.com] Also if you want this story de-uglied click here [slashdot.org]

  • Viruses up in first half of the year? (Score:4, Funny)

    by Tuffsnake ( 767507 ) on Monday September 20, 2004 @01:54PM (#10299985)
    Well, that generally is the cold and flu season :P

  • Market Share (Score:3, Insightful)

    by COMON$ ( 806135 ) on Monday September 20, 2004 @01:55PM (#10299993) Journal
    I dont think we will see a real change in the viruses for Linux until their market share increases to appeal to the spammers and virus writers...

    • Re:Market Share (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Celt ( 125318 )
      Agreed, the same goes for exploits that affect Mozilla, they'll increase as market share rises

    • Re:Market Share (Score:4, Insightful)

      by polyp2000 ( 444682 ) on Monday September 20, 2004 @02:00PM (#10300074) Homepage Journal
      Me neither, that , and in addition the better security model that is inherent in linux. They only mentioned linux because it is an Microsoft website- notice there was no mention of MacOSX- of which the same could be said. Nah its just a very very subtle bit of FUD.

      Nick ...

    • Share of *which* market? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by klic ( 739114 )
      There are far more Linux machines connected with more bandwidth today than there were net-connected Windows machines when viruses started becoming a problem for those users.

      Linux is heavily used by Wall Street and major banks, many websites handling ecommerce, and many sites with fast links. If I was a virus writer, I would aim for the first two if I was after money, and the latter if I wanted zombies for denial-of-service attacks. And if my goal was demonstrating my technical virtuosity, I would go aft

  • Doesn't matter. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 20, 2004 @01:56PM (#10300009)
    This is just what you expect when using a modern operating system. The level of viruses in the windows world is to be solely blamed on the users for their lack of responsibility, not in any way to be blamed on Microsoft for in some way creating an environment conducive to these things. Things like running an NAT to prevent possibly malicious inbound connections, having to patch frequently and early in case of exposed security vulnerabilities, and treating every file-- even a passive file like an email-- with suspicion are just an inherent part of using a consumer operating system, and something you should have to expect to do in order to run a simple computer which reads email and searches the web and prints microsoft word documents. The fact that no other operating system in the world has problems any way comparable to the worm and virus problem experienced by users of Microsoft operating systems is due to factors other than the actions of Microsoft.

    2 + 2 = 5

    • Re:Doesn't matter. (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Eberlin ( 570874 )
      Fair enough. Clueless users and lazy admins are primarily at fault for most infections. However, there should be some sort of responsibility from the vendor to secure the product -- especially because of its demographic which ranges from the uber1337 to the clueless.

      XP SP2 addresses some of those issues -- like the firewalling being turned on by default. I'm willing to bet that Joe Sixpack wouldn't have done that on his own. With worms and viruses that travel through Outlook's preview pane or through s

    • Re:Doesn't matter. (Score:3, Interesting)

      by ramk13 ( 570633 )
      Security has to be some combination of software design and user expertise, not just one or the other. To say it's all the users fault is short sighted. Do you expect every computer user to understand what a firewall is and how it works? That's just not going to happen without spending *massive* resources on educating people who probably don't want to be that educated. Some people just want to use computers not manage them. Should we start requiring a license to use computers to force people to learn?

      If a c

  • Murphy's Microsoft Corrolary (Score:5, Funny)

    by halivar ( 535827 ) <`moc.liamg' `ta' `reglefb'> on Monday September 20, 2004 @01:56PM (#10300010)
    If you install it, they will come.

  • Wow, that's impressive (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    "Also mentions the likelihood that viruses for Linux and handhelds will see a sharp rise"

    The media have this amazing power to decide that something is true simply by saying so. Lucky bastards.

  • What's new? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by stratjakt ( 596332 ) on Monday September 20, 2004 @01:58PM (#10300030) Journal
    Is it me, or does slashdot report the news that "Windows viruses on the rise!" or some derivation thereof every single fucking day?

    I mean, this is just a mainstream news spacefiller about stuff we know all about.

    Forget your it and politics sections. Just make a "ms-flamebait" section, and just repost this "announcement" that there are lots of Windows' malware every 15 minutes.

    • Re:What's new? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by DarKnyht ( 671407 )
      I think the real news here is the incredible spin that is ran at the end of the article. It is written to make an uneducated reader assume that eventually Linux and Handhelds will see a 400% climb in virus. It fails to mention the security differences between Linux and Windows or even a Handheld and Windows. On both is is much harder to exploit in the way that Windows is exploited because they generally require user participation in installing such malware.

      I believe we will see more problems with Linux

    • Very Good Idea! (Score:3, Insightful)

      by earthstar ( 748263 )
      Im also tired like numerous others of reading microsoft virus alert/aka M$ bashing.

      It is Highly unlikely a seperate section
      for MS-FLAMEBAIT --
      • Slashdot Depends Heavily on Articles related to Microsoft for getting Maximum comments -

      • As we know Articles realated to Microsoft have
        a minimum comment range of 400-500 while max could be anything from 1000-2000 range.

        In stark comparison most other articles would only get a minimum of 60 or a max of 350 [ 60-350 Range].

        If M$ related stories are moved to a sepera

  • Is there a smarter person than me who can tell me how likely it is that there will be worms that can distribute themselves via thunderbird, evolution and the likes that bother the end-user directly?
    • Slim to nill, I'd say, unless they were cross-client viruses - ie, you could get them from Outlook, et al users.

      Aside from that, I'm sure there's a possibility of such an exploit taking place. I think the real concern would be viruses which do not bother the end user, as they'd be more likely to go undetected.
    • As Evolution, Kontact (KDE's groupware suite, encorporating Kmail) and Thunderbird vie for desktop supremacy new features will be developed, and copied, and theoretically you will start seeing the same technologies popping up in at least the top three dominant mail clients (and web browsers) on the Linux platform. Once you get common technologies, that's when virus writers have something to target that they know will be common across their userbase (or at least a large part of it). That's the situation that

    • Re: Worms for non-microsoft software (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Alwin Henseler ( 640539 ) on Monday September 20, 2004 @03:18PM (#10301005)
      Ever heard of the Morris internet worm [snowplow.org]? Back in 1988, and didn't even use Windows systems.

      There have been several Linux worms as well, like the Lion worm [spirit.com]. BTW: very interesting story about the origins of that one! Some even stay only in memory after infection, so that you can remove them by a simple reboot (and get re-infected 2 minutes later). Not changing any system files makes them harder to detect.

      Usually these don't have as big an impact as their Windows counterparts, I suspect this has a lot to do with the way the average *nix system is managed in comparison to the average Windoze box. Decent built-in security, and software distributed in source form, makes life a lot harder for worms, spyware and shit like that.

      ...and the likes that bother the end-user directly...

      It doesn't really matter if it's a browser-only or other type of exploit. Malware like worms, virusses, spyware, whatever, eat CPU time, memory, can cause unexpected crashes, leak private information, loads of network traffic, or weird/annoying behaviour of your system. In short: they cost you (time and/or money). And what they do (infect other systems, send spam, ...), causes cost on others as well.

  • So if the likliehood of a Linux virus were... (Score:3, Funny)

    by hal2814 ( 725639 ) on Monday September 20, 2004 @01:59PM (#10300052)
    ...up by 300% that would be... ...hmmm, what's 300% of 0?

    (This IS just a joke. I'm not sure if there's a Linux virus or not, but I'm not aware of any. Please don't take this e-mail as a recommendation to not patch your Linux boxen regularly or to not take security seriously in Linux.)
    • Depends how anally you want to define "virus".

      True 'viruses' havent really been a problem for Windows in years, either. The stuff labelled "virus" in the press is all worms, exploits, or other malware.

      There are worms and exploits and other malware for linux. Google for root kits. It's not that hard to write, and there are plenty of documented bugs to exploit out there.

      • An excellent point there. (Score:5, Insightful)

        by khasim ( 1285 ) <brandioch.conner@gmail.com> on Monday September 20, 2004 @02:26PM (#10300415)
        VIRUSES - A big problem on Windows, currently not a big problem on Linux. I view viruses as a failure of the security model of the operating system.

        Windows is still VERY open to viruses but for pure infection rates they can't match ...

        TROJANS - particularly the email types. Dumb user clicks on an attachment and gets infected. The trojan then emails itself to everyone in his address book (on the assumption that dumb people have dumb friends). Trojans will be with us as long as we have dumb users.

        -and-

        WORMS - The spread without any human intervention. But these should have a very short life span. Patch the flaw and they die.

        Which shows why Linux has been so resistant to "viruses" so far.

        #1. Worms - Not everyone runs the same services, active, with the same flaws, unprotected by a firewall. And there is no reason to believe that this will ever change. Worms are a minor threat on Linux.

        #2. Viruses - the security model for Linux is better at preventing infections than Microsoft's model. Unless this changes (again, why would it), viruses will remain a minor threat on Linux.

        #3. Rootkits - a problem, but they rely upon flaws the same a worms do.

        #4. Trojans - We'll see. Unfortunately, as I stated above, this is also the largest current "virus" threat today. If you can get a dumb user to go through all the steps necessary to install it ... So the "solution" is to block or slow the most common method of such "infections". Which is Microsoft Outlook and its ability to run executable attachments. Just NOT enabling this functionality on Linux email clients would prevent most trojan attacks from "infecting" the computer.

        So, while Linux is not perfect, it is far more resistant to viruses, worms and even dumb user trojans than Windows is.

  • Windows virii vs. Open Source (Score:5, Insightful)

    by redfirebmd ( 815070 ) on Monday September 20, 2004 @02:00PM (#10300066)
    This short article mentions an increase in linux viruses, but fails to mention the obvious fact about a virus that attacks any open source operating system: Any exploit that is found by someone malicious will be quickly fixed by the overwhelming majority that belongs to the benevolent OSS community. The lifetime of a virus attacking and open source OS would be very short, and wouldn't require the use of any third party virus protection software to fix.

    • Re:Windows virii vs. Open Source (Score:5, Insightful)

      by goldspider ( 445116 ) on Monday September 20, 2004 @02:08PM (#10300166) Homepage
      "Any exploit that is found by someone malicious will be quickly fixed by the overwhelming majority that belongs to the benevolent OSS community."

      Or all of us members of the "benevolent OSS community" can assume that the above is true, and remain blissfully ignorant of problems found in OSS because we are confident that someone out there is taking care of it.

      • Or all of us members of the "benevolent OSS community" can assume that the above is true, and remain blissfully ignorant of problems found in OSS because we are confident that someone out there is taking care of it.

        The fact that we have operating systems like Linux and FreeBSD is proof enough that someone is taking care of it. You can choose to remain blissfully ignorant if you choose, or if you don't have to coding skills to contribute yourself. I, however, would bet my bottom dollar that any exploit w

      • ...because we are confident that someone out there is taking care of it.

        At the very least, we can be confident that no one is covering it up...

    • > This short article mentions an increase in linux viruses, but fails to mention the obvious fact about a virus that attacks any open source operating system: Any exploit that is found by someone malicious will be quickly fixed by the overwhelming majority that belongs to the benevolent OSS community.

      Haven't some of the most destructive viruses done their work over the course of a weekend? Even if the virus is noticed, trapped, and analyzed, and the vulnerability is fixed, all within a day, will peopl

    • So what? How fast it's patched or found is irrelevant.

      Most windows boxes are taken via exploits that have been patched for months, even years. Many of these are running Windows 95 rev A, for crying out loud.

      What does it matter that Samba 3.0.7 fixed a DOS exploit that can bring down a machine, most people out there will be running 3.0.6 or lower. Hell, most are running 2.x because moving to 3.x requires time and effort, which cost money in the real world.

      Who cares if the latest cvs of OpenSSh has no h
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re:Windows virii vs. Open Source (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Soko ( 17987 ) on Monday September 20, 2004 @02:20PM (#10300332) Homepage
      That's assuming that people actually patch thier machines with the fix. And that fix doesn't break anything else. /devils_advocate

      We need to be on our toes. As more people deploy and get better at anti-spam measures, our internet connected Linux machines make very tempting targets for spammers.

      Don't get smug, watch your logs and keep your stuff patched.

      Soko

    • Re:Windows virii vs. Open Source (Score:4, Insightful)

      by azaris ( 699901 ) on Monday September 20, 2004 @02:24PM (#10300383) Journal

      Any exploit that is found by someone malicious will be quickly fixed by the overwhelming majority that belongs to the benevolent OSS community.

      A worm; maybe. A custom exploit in the hands of a blackhat, never. At least until someone gets 0wn3d. Need we recall what happened to FSF, Gentoo, Apache Foundation or Debian?

      Also, time from patch release to patch application also matters. All widely exploited Microsoft holes were patched in advance - it was the unpatched machines that broke the camels back.

    • Let's say a Linux virus mounts a successful attack across many Linux distributions, the fix is not trivial and a patch may break many applications. Not an uncommon problem for Microsoft. How does your benevolent but unorganized and fractious OSS community respond to the crisis, accommodate all conflicting interests and get the job done quickly?

  • The article misses a massive point (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jridley ( 9305 ) on Monday September 20, 2004 @02:00PM (#10300075)
    From the article:
    Spammers, after forking over money to the hackers for access, then flood those hacked computers with unsolicited messages, or spam, that often advertise products or get people to spend money.

    That makes it sound like they take over your machine so they can send you spam. No, they take over your machine so that they can USE your machine to send spam to millions of other users.

  • One Linux virus = Infinite increase (Score:4, Funny)

    by HermanZA ( 633358 ) on Monday September 20, 2004 @02:01PM (#10300082)
    Well, as soon we finally get the first real Linux virus, it will be an enormous increase and then Windows will have some serious catching up to do...

    Using Linux is boring - nothing ever goes wrong.

  • Attack of the killer spam.... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Ericzombie ( 812295 ) on Monday September 20, 2004 @02:02PM (#10300095)
    Eventually what will end up happening from all of the virii and worms being released, as well as the explosion of spam and unsolicited messages will be that people are just going to get fed up and stop using computers as well as the internet as much as previously. The standard home users will abandon the internet, and the .com boom will shrivel more and more until computers will be reserved for direct communication and business purposes. People can only stand so much of the garbage associated with running computers.

  • Good to know... (Score:3, Funny)

    by StevenHenderson ( 806391 ) <<stevehenderson> <at> <gmail.com>> on Monday September 20, 2004 @02:02PM (#10300101)
    ...that the recession is not hurting virus writers!

  • I've heard this tune before ... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by JonKatzIsAnIdiot ( 303978 ) <.moc.oohay. .ta. .0002_1624a.> on Monday September 20, 2004 @02:02PM (#10300103)
    I thought last year was supposed to be the 'worst ever' according to this article [internetnews.com] anyway.
    Hmmm, let's review:
    2003 - worst year ever
    2004 - viruses sharply up (from the worst year ever)
    So - when does that 'Great Security Initiative' of 2002 start working? Microsoft please - the authenticated code approach doesn't work. Sandboxes do.

  • Viruses Up (Score:5, Funny)

    by chris_mahan ( 256577 ) <chris.mahan@gmail.com> on Monday September 20, 2004 @02:04PM (#10300130) Homepage
    In market news, Virus Inc reported stronger-than-expected results, beating street analysis by a broad margin, sending Microsoft lower. Symantec, a promary contractor of Virus Inc, said that they are pleased with the performance "When they do well, we do well" said Ama Popup, director of Marketing at Symatec. Sasser, spokesman for Virus Inc, relayed the management outlook by saying "We expect to migrate our primary products to Linux as soon as it is popular enough to warrant the cost." Asked whether their plans were too optimistic, Sasser replied: "We are fighting against open source hackers who attempt to build security on consumer-grade products. We are confident that the average user will help us defeat such paranoid and counter-productive efforts."

  • Ports being banned... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by yonatanh ( 815045 ) on Monday September 20, 2004 @02:05PM (#10300139)
    Well since a lot of the big ISP's have banned incoming requests or outgoing requests to most windows ports (135, 445, 5000, et cetera) there aren't as many attacks anymore so even when a new exploit is released machines are compromised much less often.

  • Did battle with a xp machine yesterday (Score:5, Interesting)

    by codepunk ( 167897 ) on Monday September 20, 2004 @02:06PM (#10300151)
    I did battle with a xp machine yesterday that got zombied. This thing was blasting out thousands of mail messages. It tried nearly everything to keep me from removing it from the machine, morphing, auto reinstall, hiding in different locations, modifying start registry at every shutdown. This is not your average script kiddy stuff somebody wrote it that knew what he was doing. Spybot, norton, clam or adware never even recognized it. This is a machine behind a firewall, virus scanning, spybot scanning etc but it still got infected through yes you guessed it Internet Explorer, and yes it had every security patch installed.

    Before I left I disabled internet explorer and installed firefox. It may still get infected through outlook or some other means but I made it one hell of alot harder by switching them to firefox.

  • If only we could keep them away... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 20, 2004 @02:11PM (#10300207)

    $ wget http://foo.example.com/superawesomescreensaver.bin
    $ ./superawesomescreensaver.bin
    error: root access required
    $ su
    Password:
    # ./superawesomescreensaver.bin


    Because you know it would happen. :/

  • Marketing 101 (Score:4, Insightful)

    by nemski ( 587833 ) <davidATnemskiDOTcom> on Monday September 20, 2004 @02:11PM (#10300216) Homepage
    Symantec also said it expects more viruses and worms in the future to be written to attack systems that run on the Linux operating system and hand-held devices as they become more widely used.

    Hmmm, Symantec sells virus protection for hand-helds [symantecstore.com] and Linux [symantec.com]. I sure hope that they believe there will be more virus/spam attacks against these systems.

  • Waiting for the day (Score:4, Insightful)

    by lawpoop ( 604919 ) on Monday September 20, 2004 @02:12PM (#10300223) Homepage Journal
    Every time we read an article about some awesome new windows virus, or how there are so many viruses for windows, or how they is some new exploit in XP, there is always some token statement that Any Day Now(tm) the internet will be bursting with Linux virus. There is a veritable Litany(tm) of excuses as to why linux isn't being targeted yet, but soon! Soon! The folly and false sense of security you FOSS boys boast will be exposed! There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth!

    Seriously, is linux actually more secure? Will desktop vendors make it less secure for Joe Sixpack by stuff like root by default? Why aren't people writing linux viruses?

  • Simple FUD (Score:5, Insightful)

    by hellfire ( 86129 ) <deviladv@gmTOKYOail.com minus city> on Monday September 20, 2004 @02:13PM (#10300237) Homepage
    Quoth the article:

    Symantec also said it expects more viruses and worms in the future to be written to attack systems that run on the Linux operating system and hand-held devices as they become more widely used.

    Hand held devices are already pretty widely used. Also, do they mean Pocket Windows? Palm OS? And have they checked the numbers?

    My problem is that there is no great proof that I've seen for or against linux/Mac/Palm OS being more secure or less prone to viruses. A sentence beginning with Symmantec always makes me think this is just FUD to stir up concern on other platforms to purchase products, with no basis in fact.
  • I submitted the NYT story, and the BBC story, that i now seem to have lost the link to... at 2 in the morning :) and it sees to have turned into the 5:35 am story..

    But it IS remarkably more humorous because M$ has posted the reuters story.

    Whats also interesting is just how bad norton and mcaffe, or rather the consumer versions ive seen lately, tend to be at protecting machines. The ONLY reason i still like symantec is the fact that do and publish research.

    I couldent find a link to the actual "thr

  • Viruses?!?!?!?!1 (Score:3, Funny)

    by ral315 ( 741081 ) on Monday September 20, 2004 @02:16PM (#10300286)
    Thank goodness I'm smart enough to avoid th...ooh, free Britney Spears pr0n!

  • Effort.... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by thewiz ( 24994 ) * on Monday September 20, 2004 @02:17PM (#10300293)
    Hmmm... I seriously doubt that there is going to be a "sharp rise" in Linux viruses for a few reasons:

    1. Most people, when it comes to doing work, try to do just enough to get by. If it's easier to infect a machine running Windows than it is to do one running Linux, it'll be the Windows machine getting attacked.

    2. In the same vein, most people you use Linux or a different flavor of *nix tend to be more technically savvy than the typical Windows user and secure their systems properly (in my experience). Note, I am talking about users here, not computer professionals.

    3. And the numbers of Linux systems available for compromise still isn't as high as the number of new computers that boot into Windows when they come out of the box from Dell (IBM, HP, Compaq, etc).

    Will we eventually see more Linux systems being attacked? Sure, as people finally get a clue and either secure their Windows systems properly, install a decent firewall (preferably hardware), change OSes, or get get disgusted with the Internet in general and pull the plug.

  • Regarding Linux and Mac viruses.. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by dustinbarbour ( 721795 ) on Monday September 20, 2004 @02:17PM (#10300300) Homepage
    Yes, the number of viruses will rise as the use of these operating systems rises. However, I don't think they'll have anywhere near as much of an impact on each respective machine.. you know.. stricter permissions and all. If Windows would implement something akin to the *nix 'root' user, it would go a long way in helping with security.
      1. If Windows would implement something akin to the *nix 'root' user, it would go a long way in helping with security.

      While I agree that would be a big step up for Microsoft Windows -- root is not the same as administrator under Windows -- the traditional rights of the root account under *nix should also go away.

      The problem with root is that it is too powerful. A bad agent (person or software) needs only to gain root access to abuse the machine and any resource it has.

      Seperating what is allowable into

  • windows vs linux (Score:3, Insightful)

    by cinemabaroque ( 783205 ) <sophist112358@yahoo.com> on Monday September 20, 2004 @02:18PM (#10300306) Journal
    i'm not a hacker but my understanding of WHY windows is so insecure is because of the tight integration of apps and the OS. I doubt that firefox will ever have the insecurity of internet explorer because IE has all kinds of weird system entanglements that let malicious code get executed. Same with outlook and office, etc.

    Linux on the other hand generally will not let information flow freely between different apps and the OS, you have to tell it to do something like that, its (infinitely) more transparent.

    So while we will see linux virii, they might only work on mandrake 8.2 and red hat 83.42.19, and only if you have the right library installed in the right place and were logged in as root to read your email.

  • Preaching to the choir (Score:3, Informative)

    by trentfoley ( 226635 ) on Monday September 20, 2004 @02:20PM (#10300337) Homepage Journal
    I, and perhaps many others, would be very happy if everyone would just do the following:

    1) DON'T BUY SPAMVERTISED PRODUCTS.

    2) STOP USING IE. There are lots of great alternatives.

    3) Use a decent ingress/egress firewall.

    4) Keep AV software updated. And, keep it running!

    5) Don't run with admin priviledges. I know this is impossible for most Windows users.

    6) Don't call me when you screw up your computer and expect me to fix it as a favor! :)

    P.S. I shouldn't bitch so much. I've made a decent amount of money removing malware during the last six months.

    • 5) Don't run with admin priviledges. I know this is impossible for most Windows users.

      That's just slashdot folklore. I log in as administrator about once a month, and only because month after month I keep hoping ATi will release a driver that doesn't suck.

      Many slashdotters hate windows because they don't understand how to configure and use it. In which case, yes, if you don't understand the basics of windows security and rights assignment, it's much easier just to run as Administrator.

      Of course, it's

  • This on the heels of the first virus... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Exmet Paff Daxx ( 535601 ) on Monday September 20, 2004 @02:21PM (#10300358) Homepage Journal
    To target Slashdot.

    You heard me right. A recent trojan actually used Slashdot to post the IP addresses of infected hosts to a public reading spot, so that the worm authors could collect these addresses and break into the systems. The infections were posted to sid=31337 [slashdot.org], one of Slashdot's two remaining "troll" discussions. You can click that link to see the approximately 4000 infections that posted their IP addresses (along with a random hash to prevent duplicate messages and defeat the "lame" filter) to the discussion.

    Cmdrtaco responded to this terrorism by closing the sid, proving that terrorism works.

  • Linux is still virus and worm free in 2003/2004 (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 20, 2004 @02:28PM (#10300446)
    If you check www.norton.com, there hasn't been in a virus or worm in 2003 and 2004. If you want to check the high impact advisories in 2004: A almost all of them belong to Windows and one belongs to Linux (January 5, 2004). If you look at the current activity of CERT http://www.us-cert.gov/current/current_activity.ht ml
    All of them belong to Windows. Go back to the archives for 2004, almost all of them belong to Windows except for May 5, 2004 (Cisco security problem)

  • And water is wet... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Spoing ( 152917 ) on Monday September 20, 2004 @02:34PM (#10300531) Homepage
    What part of this surprises anyone?

  • Ready for the desktop? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by terrencefw ( 605681 ) <.ten.nedlohsemaj. .ta. .todhsals.> on Monday September 20, 2004 @02:35PM (#10300555) Homepage
    Viruses for Linux expected? Well, I suppose they're talking about the fabled Linux is ready for the desktop event we've been anticipating for half the last decade.

    Some news for you: I happen to do work on my PC. This includes office type tasks, communication by email and sometimes IM, web browsing, software development, graphics work and a load of other stuff. I have to make sure my data is safe in case of nasties like a hard disk failure, which happenned a few months back (easy - DVD-R root fs + rsync'ed /home). I expect to be able to jump on and off my PC because I work from home to make childcare easier.

    That's what I do. No games, no dicking around with software I don't have a use for. (Oh yeah, I post on /. though ;-)

    I use Linux (or one of the BSDs on my production boxes) because it just works. I can get what I need done and get away without being bothered by the 'computer'. No rebooting, no intrusive update process ie: Windows Update popping up messages asking me stuff while I try and work, no downtime due to viruses, no wasted web browsing sessions due to popups, no wasted email time due to spam, worrying about if my keystrokes are being logged when I buy stuff online.

    Contrast this to my two groups of friends who continue to use Windows:

    The first group are not generally computer literate. They've mostly given up on their computers as unusable. Spam, viruses, trojans, popups, crashes, reboots. Poor sods. They really want to get stuff done, but the 'computer' just gets in the way.

    The second group is probably the user I was when I was about 13 or 14. They have to have the latest, greatest cracked or keygened software, but they don't actually know how to use it or have any real need for it. They're like the trophy hunters in the jungle of Adobe, Microsoft, Corel and friends. "D00d I scored pshop cs last night, r0xx0rz!! how do i put my sisters head on britneys bodey?". They don't seem to care about getting 0wn3d, and thing they're enlarging their l33t sysadmin skillz when they end up reinstalling.

    The reality is, I'm too busy to have to do battle with my PC when all I really want to do is get my work done then kick back with a beer and chill. Linux makes this a possibility for me in a way proprietary software can't.

    Ready for the desktop? Of course it fscking is! (Hey, my wife uses it on her PC, and she's totally non-techie)

    • Re:Ready for the desktop? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by gordgekko ( 574109 ) on Monday September 20, 2004 @02:53PM (#10300732) Homepage
      Your world is pretty small, I know of a third group that runs Windows and is never infected by viruses, hit by exploits or other nasties, their computer hums along just nicely and they use their computer to do stuff. I know, because I'm one of them. Nice to meet you.

    • No rebooting

      I haven't had to reboot my windows 2000 machine for weeks.

      no intrusive update process ie: Windows Update popping up messages asking me stuff while I try and work

      How often does this happen? Maybe once a week? You can turn this feature off, you know...

      no downtime due to viruses

      I use a virus scanner (AVG). I have never had a virus cause any problems of my PC. I have gotten viruses before off the internet, but the virus scanner catches them and gets rid of them. This happens maybe once a mont

  • Once upon a time... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by edunbar93 ( 141167 ) on Tuesday September 21, 2004 @04:19AM (#10306318)
    We started filtering viruses from our incoming mail in November, and as the sysadmin for the mail server in question, I was nervously awaiting the first onslaught of viruses. The statistics for the first couple months were dismal, with the number of viruses canned being at only about 2-300 a day, and sometimes a lot less.

    Then MyDoom came out January 28, 2004. This day will live on in infamy since I posted to usenet about it and it's in Google's cache.

    We went from 300 a day to 15,000 a day in two days.

    After a while though, it died down. To about 5000 a day, still more than 10 times what it used to be. Then Zafi came out on June 11th and in three days the number of virus hits hit their peak at about 110K per day.

    Again, it died down, but now we're cleaning *coughcough*only*cough* 15,000 messages per day out of our mail. Yes, that's right, we're now filtering more viruses on a daily basis than at the *peak* of MyDoom.

    If the people at F-Prot, or the developers of qmail-scanner are listening, thank you. You've saved a lot of people a lot of pain.

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