My Ubuntu 9.10 is intalled on a partition on my computer HDD. The other partition OS is Windows XP. My Windows uses McAfee as the antiviral program. Granted that linux is at a much less risk for viruses, some still apparently can slide through on incoming emails from Windows computers.

1) Will my Windows partition McAfee protect the entire computer?
2) If not, suggestions for an anti-viral program?

Thanks,

No it won't.

Have a look here:

http://linuxappfinder.com/security/anti-virus

Clamav is popular,but there are others.
Also probably more important is to make sure you are running some kind of firewall.

Question is irrelevant. Windows viruses only work on Windows operating systems. They won't work on Linux, of any type, anymore than they'd infect a Mac. Don't know where you heard that some could 'slip through', from Windows, and infect Linux...

There are some Linux AV programs (clamAV, etc.), but if you run a rootkit checker, you'll be in good shape.

1: No---any program, including anti-virus, can only work if it is running. If you are booted into Linux, then nothing on Windows is running.

If you had a virtual machine setup, then the answer **might** be different.

In over 5 years of using Linux (2 years exclusively) I have yet to have any problems with Viruses. The program supported by our IT department is Clam, but I have no experience with it.

windows virus's will not run in linux, but, if you are concerned about accidentally passing along an email with an attachment, then you can get ClamAV (which is very good) through the Ubuntu repositories.

you can also install a firewall program, but like adding ClamAV, it would just be for added protection, since iptables is already in the kernel.

Thanks for the replies.

My brief research summarized below did make me wary. My question was really if I needed to download an anti-virus program to my Ubuntu partition or if I had cross protection from my McAfee on the Windows XP partition. Obviously, the answer is "no."

So I'll be downloading an anti-virus/malware/firewall program to my Ubuntu partition. Suggestions for the best "freebie?"



SecurityFocus's Scott Granneman stated,

...some Linux machines definitely need anti-virus software. Samba or NFS servers, for instance, may store documents in undocumented, vulnerable Microsoft formats, such as Word and Excel, that contain and propagate viruses. Linux mail servers should run AV software in order to neutralize viruses before they show up in the mailboxes of Outlook and Outlook Express users."[1]

Because they are predominantly used on mail servers which may send mail to computers running other operating systems, Linux virus scanners generally use definitions for, and scan for, all known viruses for all computer platforms. For example the open source ClamAV "Detects ... viruses, worms and trojans, including Microsoft Office macro viruses, mobile malware, and other threats.

The classical threat to Unix-like systems is vulnerabilities in network daemons, such as ssh and WWW servers. These can be used by worms or for attacks against specific targets. As servers are patched quite quickly when a vulnerability is found, there have been only a few widespread worms of this kind. As specific targets can be attacked through a vulnerability that is not publicly known there is no guarantee that a certain installation is secure. Also servers without such vulnerabilities can be successfully attacked through weak passwords.

A new area of concern identified in 2007 is that of cross-platform viruses, driven by the popularity of cross-platform applications. This was brought to the forefront of malware awareness by the distribution of an Openoffice.org virus called Bad Bunny.

Stuart Smith of Symantec wrote the following:

"What makes this virus worth mentioning is that it illustrates how easily scripting platforms, extensibility, plug-ins, ActiveX, etc, can be abused. All too often, this is forgotten in the pursuit to match features with another vendor... [T]he ability for malware to survive in a cross-platform, cross-application environment has particular relevance as more and more malware is pushed out via Web sites. How long until someone uses something like this to drop a JavaScript infector on a Web server, regardless of platform?"[6]

If you are using Ubuntu, you might want to read this link, it discusses the Bad Bunny virus also:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Linuxvirus