Slashdot Mirror
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?"
Your webcam turned on, then off, and you didn't ask it to? I think you need to figure out what happened first.
It would help if the manufacturers would preinfect their software so we could stop worry about "if" we are infected and move towards just accepting it.
*Disclaimer: I in no way work for, represent, or contract for Sony. (Sorry Sony lawyers made me add the preceding text.)
It was just Skynet checking out what you were up to. Or maybe the ATF. Or Russian Mafia. Or...
As for security, ~5 years ago read someone's account of watching while someone on the internet installed a root kit on his Linux box in a matter of minutes.
Presumably some platforms/applications are less likely to be compromised than others, but the safest assumption is that everything is compromised, or would be if the experts wanted it.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
When I ran Linux on my laptop for work I always ran some form of AV. I really wasn't concerned about my own machine being compromised. The scenario that bothered me was the potential for a client to send me an infected file which could get forwarded to another customer. Do to the nature of our business, at the time, that would've been rather embarrassing.
Solving Unix problems since 1989...
http://xkcd.com/1200/
Yesterday my webcam suddenly turned on, and turned off after several minutes.
Hey, sorry about that. I was trying to get the girl next door that's leeching off your wifi. She's so cute! But when I turned on the webcam, I knew I had the wrong person. Also, dude, put some pants on. Nobody wants to see that.
Oh, and that stuff about Linux having malware? I'm sure you have nothing to worry about. The Year of the Linux Desktop hasn't come yet (though they say it'll be this summer for sure!), so you're safe. All the malware me and my friends at the Evil League of Evil make for Linux is designed to worm its way into web servers, ftp, etc., to spread malware to Windows boxes. We aren't interested in your personal life. You're a nerd, running Linux. We haven't found a single case of one of you having a life yet. Hell, you don't even have a decent car, man.
oh oh, gotta go, the webcam is up and... oooooh my....
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
As long as you have people on Ubuntu forums posting "sudo apt-get " as the solution to everything without explaining what they do, and as long as you have people willing to copy/paste the commands without understanding what they are doing, then malware is a threat.
The same groupthink plagues the Arch Linux forums. Blindly copy/pasting commands that someone else put on a wiki does not make you elite, it makes you an idiot.
The same issue exists in adding repositories from untrusted sources. What's the point of running an enterprise-class operating system if the first thing you do is add a third party repo from Russia and update the kernel with something ending -kmod?
The critical mass of idiot users still reside in Windows, where things like UAC and walled gardens exist to protect them somewhat. At least there, you have to know the administrator password to do real damage. Ubuntu and all the new user-friendly distros are content to put every new account in /etc/sudoers and allow you to use your own password to gain root access. Any operating system is prone to malware so long as people are willing to bend security practices.
then I'd worry a lot. Rootkits for privilege escalation, SQL injection attacks against poorly-written 3rd-party and locally-developed databases, PHP, CMS & web framework vulnerabilities, etc, etc, etc.
For home use, I'm concerned about router vulnerabilities (Tomato helps but is not perfect) and MITM attacks (but there's nothing I can really do about them except keep my s/w up-to-date, while praying that vendors do the same).
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
Linux is much easier to exploit than Windows. All of its internals are well understood, and there are more things one can do with shell access.
2003 is calling. They want their FUD back.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
Getting struck by lightning is real. Worrying about/preparing for it very much is silly. Draw your own conclusions about how this applies to malware on a Linux machine that's kept up-to-date and the user avoids risky behaviors.
For lightning, make a will, and you're covered. For Linux, make backups, and you're covered.
My home has a lightning rod. So do all the tall buildings downtown. I have UPS and surge protectors, and even surge arresting breakers in my home's electric service panel. It's not just worrying over lightning, it's also worrying over accidental electrocution (all circuits are GFCI protected in some form, which has saved my bacon more than once); The power spikes and drops in this city are pretty bad. Every time it rains or the wind blows a bit we get little power hiccups. My home has been struck by lightning 3 times in the past 20 years. My neighbors behind me have had a tall pine tree struck, and the neighbors across the street showed up at my doorstep at 3am one morning after a particularly loud thunder clap -- The large china-berry tree in their front yard was struck and it fell over on their house.
Just like with Malware and any OS, there is far more you can do to prevent against lightning or electrical damage. I've never lost a system to power issues, and I have many. In addition to backups I use VMs -- Oops, virused a VM image, restore from snapshot -- It's like a backup, but smarter.
But I couldn't get the damn thing to compile!
Also, do not ever copy and paste commands directly in your terminal from an untrusted website, even if you do understand them:
http://thejh.net/misc/website-terminal-copy-paste
Assuming you don't do silly things like run completely unknown commands, you're pretty safe. JavaScript and Flash is cross-platform, though. I've seen one Linux system where their Yahoo email account was compromised, probably by malicious JavaScript. It might have been phishing, though, or a combination. The main things I do for security are - run most updates provided by the distro and browser, have backups, don't run services I don't use, and I have a separate browser for Flash and Java. Most Flash is ads or pointless eyecandy so I don't miss not having Flash in my daily browser. Even YouTube doesn't need Flash these days, so I open the Flash browser maybe once per month, if that.
TEEX.com has some free online cybersecurity courses that may have good reminders for your and your family members regarding safe browsing habits and simple security practices.
Should be /dev/video*
NB: The message above might reflect my opinion right now, but not necessarily tomorrow or next year.
2003 is calling? Don't forget to warn them about Vista and Windows 8!
That is what SELinux and AppArmor are for. They might not be 100% (as there were some kernel exploits that could be used to bypass those), but with proper policies in place, something getting UID 0 would be pretty limited in what it can accomplish.
OS X also has a similar mechanism in place.
Linux also has a bunch of different distributions. A bug that causes SSL keys to be very weak in Ubuntu is not going to affect RedHat systems.
This doesn't mean Linux is worry-free, but it is more secure than people think. To cite an anecdotal example, the proof is in the pudding -- look at all the amateurish Apache servers and LAMP stacks out there. If Linux had major issues in general, there would be major screaming on almost every forum how insecure the OS is.
Hint: copied text can contain embedded newlines. And the first line of text will be some obfuscated form of stty -echo, if you have read the posted source, so you won't even know.
Well, it's impossible to prove something doesn't exist, and since this whole slashdot story originated because someone's computer did something unexpected, perhaps the OP is an example of where this was used?