Ask Slashdot: Is GNU/Linux Malware a Real Threat?

New submitter m.alessandrini writes "I've been using Debian for a long time, and I'm not a novice at all; I install system updates almost daily, I avoid risky behaviors on Internet, and like all Linux users I always felt safe. Yesterday my webcam suddenly turned on, and turned off after several minutes. I'm pretty sure it was nothing serious, but I started thinking about malware. At work I use noscript and other tools, but at home I have a more relaxed browser to be used by other family members, too. Here I'm not talking about rootkits or privilege escalation (I trust Debian), I think more of normal user compromise. For example, these days much malware come from malicious scripts in sites, even in advertising banners inside trusted sites, and this is more 'cross-platform' than normal viruses. So, what about non-root user malware? How much could this be real? And how can you diagnose it?"

Comments

Re:someone's spying on you

[hairyfeet]

Do I REALLY need to wallpaper this page with articles about Linux malware? Or point out how to write a Linux virus in 5 easy steps again?

And if you are gonna talk about me at LEAST get the facts right, I have said time and time again that Linux is great on servers, its great on embedded, where it sucks royally is the desktop. And if he isn't a novice then WTF is that Ask Slashdot anyway? if he wasn't a novice he'd know enough basic troubleshooting to figure this out on his own, but if you read TFS its pretty damned obvious his idea of "not a novice" is that he can install the OS, otherwise we wouldn't even be having this conversation.

But no matter what you, I or anybody else thinks about Linux the simple fact of the matter is this is NOT the right place for this question, it should be in the forums where they can ask follow ups and work their way through the problem, all he is gonna get here is wild guesses at best. This isn't one of those ask /. questions where you can just say "Oh do this" or "oh you need" that to solve it, its gonna take some back and forth to get to the root of the problem.