Linux - GeneralThis Linux forum is for general Linux questions and discussion.
If it is Linux Related and doesn't seem to fit in any other forum then this is the place.
Notices
Welcome to LinuxQuestions.org, a friendly and active Linux Community.
You are currently viewing LQ as a guest. By joining our community you will have the ability to post topics, receive our newsletter, use the advanced search, subscribe to threads and access many other special features. Registration is quick, simple and absolutely free. Join our community today!
Note that registered members see fewer ads, and ContentLink is completely disabled once you log in.
If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact us. If you need to reset your password, click here.
Having a problem logging in? Please visit this page to clear all LQ-related cookies.
Get a virtual cloud desktop with the Linux distro that you want in less than five minutes with Shells! With over 10 pre-installed distros to choose from, the worry-free installation life is here! Whether you are a digital nomad or just looking for flexibility, Shells can put your Linux machine on the device that you want to use.
Exclusive for LQ members, get up to 45% off per month. Click here for more info.
Well, this might be better asked in the security section, but since it's here, I'll give you my theory:
Linux is not the majority. What is a virus writers goal? Probably to do the most to the largest population. So, who are they gonna write virii for? Winbloze. There are also some other reasons, like the file structure and such, but the main thing I think of is the fact that writing a virus for the minority wouldn't be worth the time it'd take.
(But there are virii for Linux, just not as many, and they are caught and fixed quick due to open source )
Microsoft makes a good deal of decisions for you by default. You have a default webbrowser and default email cleint. Miscrosoft chose those for you on the Windows platform. So a virus author has an easy task; either defeate the browser or email client, of which you can be reasonably sure the majority of people are running on the Microsoft Windows platform.
Not the same under Linux. While it is true that major distributions such as Redhat, Mandrake, etc, also by default setup default choices, since not every distro runs the same software. Mozilla seems to be taking over the browser market, there still is no email client (evolution is aiming to be). Howerver, there just isn't a guarenteed software being used on Linux.
But it goes farther than that. 99.99% of all Linux users don't log in as root, and don't run their applications as root. This prevents changes to system files, and a good deal of direct hardware access.
Another point is M$'s intergration of software, in that applications have things like ODBC et al to talk to each other, whereas in Linux you are really limmited to quite primitive methods of exchanging information.
Open source also has a much better track record for being secure. I'm not going to debate this point, the evidence is bountiful.
But the major reason was mentioned above, that Linux just doesn't have a large enough share of the desktop market to interest virus authors. Currently Linux makes up a very small percentage of the desks out there, infact some studies I have seen state that Apple still has a larger share. I can't remember where I saw the statitics, otherwise I'd point you to a link. The point however is, inorder for a modern worm or trojan to propagate, it needs to infect a large number of hosts, and the average worm isn't going to get much more than 30% of all hosts other there (see news articles on the recent Windows trojan). But even with 30% of the lets say 5% of Linux desktops, you're looking at a whopping 0.15% of all desktops on the Internet. Not worth the trouble.
Most modern Worms or Trojans typically require some user interaction, even if its just clicking on the message, or sometimes hitting a "ok" box. While I'm not saying Linux users are always more intellegent than Windows users (look at other messages on the forms here for examples, or just observe that I can't cpeel....sigh), as a whole, Linux users tend to have more computer-sense than Windows users as a whole.
But there are Linux worms (the term virus is outdated. most of what people call viri today are worms or trojans). There was a worm with Bind last March, another one with Apache and SSL just last month ago.
So to recap, the main reason why there aren't "virus" out there for Linux is because Linux just doesn't have the desktop market to make it worth while. Secondary reasons are Linux users tend to be more "smarter" computer users, and that the open source community has been producing better software with less holes and fixing them quicker than Microsoft.
LinuxQuestions.org is looking for people interested in writing
Editorials, Articles, Reviews, and more. If you'd like to contribute
content, let us know.