(I know this has been discussed several years ago, but viruses have 'evolved' and became complex beasts.)

It seems that I have accidentally run an infected file with Wine. Would simply deleting .wine be enough to get rid of it?
(using Debian64)


thanks.

Did you have /home or even your root filesystem setup as a virtual drive under WINE? I believe the default will have at least /home shared as the Z drive.

If so, there is a possibility that files within the Linux filesystem have been compromised. Not to say that this infection would actually have any effect under Linux, but storing and sharing these suspect files is a problem as they might one day come into contact with a Windows system (or perhaps be accessed via WINE).

At the very least, I would run /home through an AV scanner that is designed to pick up Windows viruses, like ClamAV.

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oh, well unfortunately, root was mounted as Z:
I'll try the ClamAV, thanks.

btw, I noticed winecfg reports this error:
err:menubuilder:WinMain unknown option -a
err:menubuilder:WinMain unknown option -r

I prefer to call them "rogue software." It's simply code that executed that you did not know was executing, and did not intend to execute. They are neither "biological" nor "all-powerful" nor in any way "inevitable." (They're just "opportunistic" and "nasty.")

The most likely change that rogues make is to the registry ... which in the case of Wine is simply a file. I presume that you have very regular backups ... ... and therefore that restoring the file is a trivial matter, yes?

Beyond that, rogues in a Wine environment are limited in that they cannot actually usurp administrative-level control of anything. They are also most-often limited in that they usually don't try to alter the file-level protections of anything they touch. Since literally millions of Windows machines are out there on the Internet with the system's entire protection mechanisms turned off ... ... rogues are usually very lazy indeed.

well, they are all 'computer viruses' to me. and they were called so since '70.
besides, there are a lot of analogies with biological viruses.

backups are not so important here. most viruses don't destroy data nowadays. I am more worried about it getting bank logins and similar.

what I would like to know for sure, is whether root is 'infected', requiring complete reinstall.

A virus is a very specific type of computer malware, and is called that because it is self-replicating; it infects files on the computer and uses the transport of those files to other systems as a way to spread itself. It spreads just like a biological virus would in a community.

There are other types of malicious software on the other hand that don't usually doesn't have any replication capability or intent to spread. They get installed on the local machine and are only concerned with causing as much trouble as possible. Things like spyware and rootkits usually don't have a replication function, and rely on simply installing it on as many target machines via the Internet.

In fact, it might even be fair to say that the proliferation of high-speed, constant-on, Internet connections have all but antiquated the need for malicious code to actually replicate and spread itself; it's arguably more effective to high-jack a website and use that to silently install your code. Certainly the number of legitimate viruses have been on the decline, with the majority of infections now best classified as trojans.

At any rate, a "computer virus" is very much a real thing and is named that way specifically because of it's similarities to biological viruses. You are surely free to call them whatever you like, but that doesn't change the fact that they have a proper and accurate name.

But perhaps you have (inadvertently) brought up a good point. Does the OP know what the Wine installation became infected with? That could help determine if there was any risk of subsequent files being infected and the possibility of spreading.

You should never run wine as root. I believe there is a warning when you run it as root.

ClamAV is good against viruses. The worst thing it could have done is install a rootkit. For that try rkhunter and chkrootkit.