Is the Unix Community Worried About Worms?

Posted by Cliff on Friday September 21, 2001 @07:32AM from the if-it-can-happen-in-Redmond dept.

jaliathus asks: "While the Microsoft side of the computer world works overtime these days to fight worms, virii and other popular afflictions of NT, we in the Linux camp shouldn't be resting *too* much. After all, the concept of a worm similar to Code Red or Nimda could just as easily strike Linux ... it's as easy as finding a known hole and writing a program that exploits it, scans for more hosts and repeats. The only thing stopping it these days is Linux's smaller marketshare. (Worm propagation is one of those n squared problems). Especially if our goals of taking over the computing world are realized, Linux can and will be a prime target for the worm writers. What are we doing about it? Of course, admins should always keep up on the latest patches, but can we do anything about worms in the abstract sense?" Dispite the difficulties in starting a worm on a Unix clone, such a feat is still within the realm of possibility. Are there things that the Unix camp can be learning from Code Red and Nimbda?

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keep your code clean? by mrsmalkav · 2001-09-21 07:35 · Score: 0, Troll

It seems like it would be a stupid answer to this question being as UNIX code is generally cleaner than Windows code. My understanding is that the hackers are just trying to exploit weaknesses. The best solution for that is to not have weakness. And if you do, fix it (patching, etc). It seems that most viruses are written for MS products (ie Outlook) anyway, but being as UNIX programs or opensource programs are pretty clean and tight, there's not that worry.

I don't think there really is anything to be done differently....