Linux Malware.

If you Google ‘Gnome Look malware’ you’ll get numerous results pointing to articles about a screen saver that was available for download from Gnome-Look.org which contained malware designed to mount a DOS attack against certain World Of Warcraft related sites, I believe. No doubt there will be many Microsoft shills, fanbois and astroturfer types who’ll try to take great delight in the existence of Linux malware.

There are some points that need to be taken into consideration though. The first being is that this app was downloaded from a third party site (Albeit a normally reliable one!) and not installed using the usual, approved method of using the Linux distribution in question’s repositories. Also, this malware was spotted very quickly and the method of removal, courtesy of the Ubuntu forums, is very quick and efficient involving no more than the tools already available. I hesitate to say the fix is simple, because it involves using the command line. Oh noes!!! (One would hope that anyone confident/competent enough to install the screensaver in the first place would be able to cope with a bit of command line usage…)

So, in summary… Don’t download and install anything that you are not sure you can trust. If in doubt, stick to the official/recognised repositories. Obviously, installing apps from untrusted sources is something that needs to be discouraged whatever system you use but no new Microsoft malware would be spotted so quickly or dealt with so efficiently, I feel!