[K12OSN] Some "community friendly" presentation ideas

[Bill Bardon]

On Saturday, Sep 10 Les Mikesell wrote:
> There are "vunerablilities" with various windows between when
> exploits are developed and the updates that fix them.  If you
> put an 8 year old Linux system on the internet now with no
> updates it would probably have a breakin within a few days.

On Saturday, Sep 10 Dan Young wrote:
> A non-trivial amount of malware consists of web browser exploits.
> There's an IDN exploit out for Firefox right now which allows
> arbitrary code execution. Have you patched it yet?
> http://www.mozillazine.org/talkback.html?article=7307

You're both right, in that there are exploits of various kinds out
there.  I was talking specifically about viruses and spyware, which need
a means of propagation in order to spread from computer to computer.  As
far as I know, there are no viruses in the wild for Linux.

In practice, and bringing this back to Shawn's presentation, the facts
are that you -do- need to run anti-virus/spyware software on Windows,
and you -don't- on Linux.

> The plural of anecdote is not data. Cheers!

Anecdotal evidence is as good as none, I agree.  So, does anyone have
links to reports of Linux viruses? (NOT exploits in general.)  I'm
interested in old or new info. I've done some googling this afternoon,
and would like to find more information about the history and current
state of Linux viruses.


-- 
Bill Bardon
COMPUTASSIST
Omaha, Nebraska
http://www.computassist.com