Date: Thu, 24 Mar 2016 10:42:24 -0500 (CDT) From: "Valeri Galtsev" <galtsev@kicp.uchicago.edu> To: galtsev@kicp.uchicago.edu Cc: "Matthew Seaman" <matthew@freebsd.org>, freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Anti-virus for FreeBSD Message-ID: <18026.128.135.52.6.1458834144.squirrel@cosmo.uchicago.edu> In-Reply-To: <35576.128.135.52.6.1458833939.squirrel@cosmo.uchicago.edu> References: <wu74mbwz4ah.fsf@banyan.cs.ait.ac.th> <44909.128.135.52.6.1458829510.squirrel@cosmo.uchicago.edu> <56F40540.6090600@FreeBSD.org> <35576.128.135.52.6.1458833939.squirrel@cosmo.uchicago.edu>
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On Thu, March 24, 2016 10:38 am, Valeri Galtsev wrote: > > On Thu, March 24, 2016 10:18 am, Matthew Seaman wrote: >> On 2016/03/24 14:25, Valeri Galtsev wrote: >>> (Is anybody in a mood of correcting me on the part >>> that we scan for viruses attacking something else not on MS products? >>> Are >>> there any? ;-) >> >> I believe that there is a growing corpus of Malware aimed at MacOS X, >> IOs and Android nowadays. Although nothing like as much as has been >> aimed at various Windows versions over the years. It's all down to how >> common those OSes are and whether the malware can achieve any sort of >> critical mass and whether it provides sufficient return for its authors. > > Do any of virus scanners scan for MacOS or Android aimed stuff? > >> >> Of course, while FreeBSD is an unlikely target, it is certainly not >> immune. Nothing is. It's just it doesn't usually pay to attack FreeBSD >> machines because a) most FreeBSD users tend to pay more attention to >> security than your average machine-herder, and b) even if you do develop >> an interesting way of breaking into FreeBSD boxes, there aren't enough >> of them around to make them worthwhile as a target for recruiting into a >> botnet or the like. >> >> Also, since FreeBSD is pretty uncommon as a desktop sysetm, attacks on >> it that rely on end-users to click on things they shouldn't are pretty >> futile. > > Yes, this is where the difference between [MS Windows] virus and UNIX worm > shows (and I would add MacOS into UNIX band, not certain about Android, as > I'm not sure to what extend android executes when it sees something it can > execute). I probably should exclude Morris worm here though. Basically, > Windows viruses exploit mostly MS Windows architecture flaws. MS itself > warns that to run MS Windows safely you should have anti-virus software > (this is the only system vendor that plainly admits their system can not > be run safely with some 3rd party software). "..._without_ 3rd party software" I intended to say... - my twitchy fingers! > > Thanks for your nice input, Matthew! > > Valeri > >> Not when there's all those poorly written PHP applications and >> other network-exploitable code; a much more likely attack vector against >> FreeBSD -- but those tend not to require anti-virus software to defend >> against. >> >> Cheers, >> >> Matthew >> >> >> > > > ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ > Valeri Galtsev > Sr System Administrator > Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics > Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics > University of Chicago > Phone: 773-702-4247 > ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ > _______________________________________________ > freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list > https://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions > To unsubscribe, send any mail to > "freebsd-questions-unsubscribe@freebsd.org" > ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Valeri Galtsev Sr System Administrator Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics University of Chicago Phone: 773-702-4247 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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