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Malware Threat To GNOME and KDE
commandlinegamer writes "foobar posted on his blog recently about 'How to write a Linux virus in 5 easy steps,' detailing potential malware infection risks in the .desktop file format used by GNOME and KDE. This is not a new threat, and it appears to still be a risk, as discussions in 2006 did not seem to come to any firm conclusion on how to deal with the problem." There's a followup on LWN.
The answer is the same one that has been valid for .. well, since the advent of computers. There will always be vulnerabilities. The best you can do is be aware, vigilant, and choose software that has less vulnerabilities and whose writers work hardest to correct the problems fastest. Arguments can be made for or against Linux based on those criteria but it remains a very strong choice over Windows or Apple. The more popular Linux becomes on the desktop, the more chances there will be vulnerabilities. Now is the time for F/OSS coders to start working extra to ensure there are as few as possible.
If you write code, you know that you've left open areas where an exception will cause a problem for any number of reasons. it happens. period. So far, GNU/Linux has cleaned up quickly and well on most things. The struggle continues. That is the answer.
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It relies on the user downloading saving and running a shell-script. The only trick here is that in this KDE/GNOME form the user does not need explicitly to add execution rights on the file.
Still hardly a virus, more like a gun without a safety switch. It is one step easier for someone to shoot themselves this way.
Interestingly if we wish to reinforce the 'chmod +x' scheme, desktop files should need a +x (or some other non-MIME property) to be treated specially by GNOME and KDE. Might be an idea.
Have a brain when using the PC.
It works for all operating systems. Viruses and Trojans require the user to not think and execute things willy-nilly. Having a brain reduces the infection vectors drastically.
Every "expert" I have met that has been infected was downloading and using warez unsafely. Every regular use I have met that was infected simply clicked yes to every dialog box they did not want to bother reading and understanding.
The OS does not matter, having educated and competent users does. Have to add that competent, I have seen educated users go and click on crap without reading or thinking.. It requires competence.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Well, the author here seems to emphasise that that won't help because on a single-user account, your priority is your data. If you lose your system but your data isn't compromised, you lose very little that can't be replaced. If you lose your data but your operating system is functional, you have lost nearly everything of value.
Yes, I read it again after it struck me that it seemed rather odd that something so obvious would be called a 'security flaw'. You are right and I am wrong.
It does make a big difference in clean-up, though. With the malware not being able to get administrative privileges, it can't get into root's environment. That means that you can log in as root and the malware won't get a chance to take over, and then you can safely use all your scanning and clean-up tools without having the malware disable or circumvent them. Contrast this with how thoroughly rootkits can hide on Windows systems.
It's still dangerous, make no mistake. Once the malware's running locally, it can try local exploits to escalate to root access. But there's a lot fewer of those on Linux systems than on Windows, and they're a lot harder to exploit, and anything that doesn't successfully exploit them will be much easier to detect and remove. This is a significant win compared to Windows.
NB: nothing will protect a system from it's owner's stupidity. If the user insists on being willfully stupid, they're in a position to bypass any and all protections on the system. The only protection is to keep them away from the keyboard.
This has very little to do with user stupidity. Indeed, users should not execute things willy-nilly, but it's surely okay to open a file and look at its contents? If you think that is inherently unsafe then users must be prohibited from receiving email attachments (or downloading from web pages) altogether.
In this case there are no warning dialogues to click through, no unusual steps. All that happens is you save a file and then double-click to open it. There is no way to see in advance that the file is unsafe, and it can adopt any icon and name it wishes, so in the user interface it is *indistinguishable* from a legitimate desktop icon such as the trash can.
It gets a laugh on Slashdot to castigate 'stupid' users, but if the system does not provide users with the information needed to make an informed choice, then the system is at fault.
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
With Linux patches are free.
And they are with Windows as well. Come on, it's more than a bit ridiculous to expect Microsoft to supply patches to people who pirate their software. If you've bought your copy of Windows, patches are free. There may be a bug with validating your copy, but that's also a mistake, not by design.
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I am dealing with a user at the moment who just isn't that bright. It is not that she is a moron, she just doesn't think. Somethings she does right, she gets her wallpapers through googles image search and uses firefox after my suggestion.
But she also wants animated cursors and finds them and happily installes them. Cursor Mania.
She just doesn't get, yet, that the internet has two kinds of free and that the more something shouts it is free the less likely it is. How do you explain that firefox is free and safe but cursormania is free and not safe?
The problem is not so much that some people are stupid but that they lack a healthy dose of cynasism, they forget to question things. And that is pretty to stupid.
The system can't protect against this unless you want to life in the nanny state. Women are free to go with convicted wife-beaters unless you want the state to decide your partner for you. People can install spyware unless you want the system to decide what you can install.
For some reason people like you want software to do things you would NEVER accept in hardware. Would you really want a powerdrill that constantly checked wether you where drilling in the factory approved substances, at the right angled, under the right conditions? A screwdriver that refuses to be used as a hammer?
At some point users must accept a responsibilty to operate their equipment responsible themselves and accept that if they make mistakes, they are the ones to blaim.
You know what my solution has been to fix 99% of friends requests to fix their windows PC? Re-install. Whipe the crap and sooner or later they either figure out that "mmm once I downloaded those free smiley's my computer starts to act like a piece of crap, maybe these two things are connected" or at least find someone else to help with their crap PC's.
Lets face it, after 30 years I have started to realise that no amount of suggestion is ever going to result in girls actually giving any of the sexual favors they seem to promise when they ask you to fix their laptop.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
When I think of a "virus", well, that's just malicious code, it's something designed to do some form of damage. It's malware-- software that's up to no good. That doesn't describe the delivery method.
I can see how folks want to draw a distinction based on the severity of the exploit (namely the extent of the potential damage to the system and the level of user interaction), but claiming this isn't a real virus is just silly. Maybe a new definition for the more severe sorts of malware is needed.