Miscellaneous > The Lounge
Microsoft is a good company, really
Laukev7:
quote: The reason why you don't see many Linux virues is because Linux still isn't used by enough people to warrant a virus writer to even waste his/her time with. When a person writes a virus they are naturally going to target the most used system because that will yield the most damage path.
More people got infected with Blaster than there are people who use Linux+MacOS+Unix+BSD combined. That there is more than enough to backup the fact that targeting Windows is going to wreak the most havoc.
--- End quote ---
While it is true that one could make a virus that straps to the bootloader, the virus would have to be executed to wind up in the bootloader, and this could not be done under a UNIX system unless the user is in root mode.
Even then, those kind of viruses are much harder to write, and much more rare than normal viruses, whether for Windows or UNIX. So if UNIX came to be more popular on the desktop, its number of viruses would still be limited to bootloader viruses, and writing such viruses would require Assembly skills, which is quite out of the range of knowledge of average script kiddies.
Since it's so easy to write viruses for Windows, with all its security holes and integrated junk like Visual Basic or Outlook that run binaries without the knowledge of the user, writing viruses is accessible to more people. On UNIX, on the other hand, virus writers have to take strict permissions into account, and writing viruses is much harder, since applications are seperated from the system.
To remedy your fallacious assumption that UNIX is not popular, I will remind you that UNIX systems and clones take about 60% of the server market, if I am not mistaken, and have been on the market for more than 30 years. Still, you can count the number of viruses developped during the whole time period on the fingers of your hand. Mac OS classic had about the same market share as Linux today, and yet there are more viruses for Mac OS classic (about a hundred) than UNIX. Even Mac OS classic has a smaller number of viruses per capita than Windows.
Here are a few statistics: 25,000,000 people divided by 100 Mac viruses gives you 1 virus per 250,000 on the Mac, compared to 500,000,000 Windows users divided by 10,000 viruses (an very generous estimate), equals 1 virus per 50,000 people. So, the pre-Mac OS 9 systems had five times less viruses than Windows.
Now, imagine how minute the number of viruses for UNIX (about 3 or 4) per number of user (about the same today as Mac OS Classic users).
[ September 27, 2003: Message edited by: Laukev7 ]
Zombie9920:
No, actually Windows Server 2003 holds a little over 50% of the server market nowadays. Windows Server 2003 has been a huge success for Microsoft.
Unix has lost alot of ground to Windows Server 2003. Unix is even losing alot of ground to Linux in the server market nowadays as well.
You are right about writing viruses that strap to a bootloader being more difficult to write. That can be considered a bad thing though because if Linux ever became the dominant OS and virus writers were targeting Linux the virii would be far worse and more sophisicated because the people writing the virii would be more skilled and more sophisicated as well.
A bootloader virus is actually capable of writing to and damaging the BIOS of your motherboard(it can access the BIOS just like a flash utility). That means that the more sophisicated viri writers could literally destroy systems. That would be far worse than having to re-install an OS.
[ September 27, 2003: Message edited by: Viper ]
Laukev7:
quote:Originally posted by Viper:
No, actually Windows Server 2003 holds a little over 50% of the server market nowadays. Windows Server 2003 has been a huge success for Microsoft.
Unix has lost alot of ground to Windows Server 2003. Unix is even losing alot of ground to Linux in the server market nowadays as well.
--- End quote ---
I lumped Linux and UNIX together un my last post, since they are similar. But you just brought the point that a spread of a UNIX virus would not run on all versions of UNIX, making it even harder to spread UNIX viruses. For example, a Solaris virus would require a recompile if it were to run on a FreeBSD box if Solaris compatibility mode is not enabled.
And though Unices may have lost server market share to Windows 2003 server, it does not change the fact that UNIX had fewer viruses than Windows even when it did have more market share than Windows.
quote: You are right about writing viruses that strap to a bootloader being more difficult to write. That can be considered a bad thing though because if Linux ever became the dominant OS and virus writers were targeting Linux the virii would be far worse and more sophisicated because the people writing the virii would be more skilled and more sophisicated as well.
A bootloader virus is actually capable of writing to and damaging the BIOS of your motherboard(it can access the BIOS just like a flash utility). That means that the more sophisicated viri writers could literally destroy systems. That would be far worse than having to re-install an OS.
--- End quote ---
But you would still have to execute the virus first, which, as I explained, can only be done in root mode.
Also, only the most stubborn and experienced virus writers who actually have a purpose in doing so would keep writing viruses for such a challenging system as UNIX. The script kiddies won't even bother, and might start doing something useful, being deprived of their fun. Don't forget that people write viruses not to damage systems, but because they have too much time on their hands, and writing viruses is easy. There won't be any more professional virus writers than there are now; they just keep on writing bootloader viruses, whether for Windows or Linux.
[ September 27, 2003: Message edited by: Laukev7 ]
meteorarocker411:
quote:Originally posted by Microsoft Corporation:
[QB]First of all, please don't say that Microsoft is a greedy company. They are not greedy at all.[QB]
--- End quote ---
Not greedy? Not greedy? Have you forgotten about the breaching of the anti-trust laws? Or did you conveniently forget about that?
It was a well written defensive for Microsoft, but you are too bias -_-
Zombie9920:
quote:Originally posted by Laukev7:
I lumped Linux and UNIX together un my last post, since they are similar. But you just brought the point that a spread of a UNIX virus would not run on all versions of UNIX, making it even harder to spread UNIX viruses. For example, a Solaris virus would require a recompile if it were to run on a FreeBSD box if Solaris compatibility mode is not enabled.
And though Unices may have lost server market share to Windows 2003 server, it does not change the fact that UNIX had fewer viruses than Windows even when it did have more market share than Windows.
--- End quote ---
Virus writes don't usually target thier viruses to directly infect servers because most admins(especially the ones who run Unix) are not idiots. They know how to prevent being infected. Virus writers usually rely on the stupid consumers who don't know jack. The stupid consumers machines are generally used to spread the virus(and in some cases the machines are silently used to do mischeivious things like helping in DoS attacks).
You are right that you would have to execute the virus for it to strap to your boot-sector but think about it like this. If Linux became dominant the same idiots who open E-Mail attachments from unknown senders would be using Linux. The same idiots who will open any file he/she downloads from the net would be using Linux.
Those idiots would be using distros like Lindows that always have you logged in as Root so it is easier to install things. So the OS wouldn't really protect the idiots. Come to think of it, you don't have to be root to mess with a Linux bootloader(you can run a MBR cleaning utility under a user account and wipe out the bootloader in Linux) therefore anybody could launch an infected RPM and get their boot sector infected.
The bootloader is not a protected System file.
Non-idiots rarely ever catch a virus in Windows because they know better than to trust anything and they know how to properly secure their OS.
A Unix virus could actually be made to work with any OS based on Unix because despite the OS differences the Unix kernel shares the same basic commands. Realistically a virus made to attack the Unix kernel would be able to do so on any OS using the Unix kernel.
Linux and Unix are not alike. The Linux kernel is completely different than the Unix kernel. If Unix and Linux were basically the same thing there wouldn't be all of the shit from SCO because Linux contains some of their code. If Linux contained more of Unix code there would be more companies making claims to damage Linux. Linux has totally different code, therefore it is not Unix and it can't be accuratley called Unix.
A Linux virus wouldn't affect a Unix system, vice versa.
[ September 27, 2003: Message edited by: Viper ]
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