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Many Antivirus Tools Fail in LinuxWorld Test

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the survival-of-the-fittest dept.

talkinsecurity writes "In a public, side-by-side test conducted last night at LinuxWorld, ten antivirus products were confronted with 25 known viruses. The results were surprisingly disparate. Only three of the products caught all of the viruses; three only caught 61 percent, and one caught an abysmal 6 percent. The test, which wasn't particularly complicated, proves that there still are wide differences in the effectiveness of AV tools. A lot of people think all AV tools are the same — they're not!"

8 of 234 comments (clear)

  1. viruses on linux - a big deal anyway? by pddo · · Score: 3, Funny

    are viruses on linux a overflow from WINE?

    1. Re:viruses on linux - a big deal anyway? by cp.tar · · Score: 5, Funny

      Actually, I remember an article about the lack of compatibility between Windows and WINE.

      Of the four viruses thrown at it, WINE couldn't run one properly.

      Truly, Wine Is Not an Emulator.

      --
      Ignore this signature. By order.
    2. Re:viruses on linux - a big deal anyway? by SpaceLifeForm · · Score: 4, Funny

      There's a good thing about Exchange.
      By the time you get the e-mail, the zero-day is expired.

      --
      You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
  2. Re:The winners: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Duh, it detected a virus and a half! Do I have to explain everything to you??

  3. Re:I came to moderate! by shystershep · · Score: 3, Funny

    druel

    Is that a cross between drivel and drool? Maybe some gruel thrown in for flavor?

    --
    The bigotry of the nonbeliever is for me nearly as funny as the bigotry of the believer. - Albert Einstein
  4. Re:Onecare caught 0% by Dude+McDude · · Score: 4, Funny

    That would mean that it's performing just as well as it does in Windows. Good work Microsoft!

  5. Re:The winners: by careykohl · · Score: 4, Funny

    Well then, all WatchGuard needs to do now is back it up with some source code showing how they managed to fuck it up so bad it misses 94% of the viruses now.

  6. Re:Zombies by bmo · · Score: 4, Funny

    "Have you ever worked in a tech department that had to support frozen computers?"

    A bit. It's a PITA, but for static setups that don't need touching and subject to "many hands" like in a library, it's not bad. Let's just say that students in a classroom are typically better behaved than many library patrons.

    " Deep Freeze is really just a crappy way of avoiding the problem instead of dealing with it and fixing it."

    Well, I think the problem with that lies elsewhere, probably in a place called Redmond. All this stuff is just patches upon patches to keep Windows from eating itself.

    "But it is not that hard to lock down boxes properly, with group policy and using the default Windows groups."

    Some would say that this should be the default, but "design and marketing decisions" prevent that.

    "But they would whine if they couldn't add weatherbug and have five different toolbars in IE"

    Nnnggghhh.... *puts on BOFH hat* "YOU GET THE POLICY OF DOOM! MUAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!"

    --
    BMO