[SGVLUG] (no subject)

[Dustin Laurence]

On Fri, Jul 28, 2006 at 07:55:58AM -0700, juanslayton at dialup4less.com wrote:

> This probably belongs in an FAQ file, but I'm interested in personal
> experience.  Does anyone have recommendations for gnu-linux antivirus
> programs?  (For what relevance it may have, I'm running Fedora Core 4
> on a legacy Pentium II machine.)

As Tom said, it depends on what you want.  When people ask this question
it's often because they're new to Linux and their experience with
Microsoft Windows makes them think that they need antivirus software on
any OS.  The fact is that there isn't any A-V software *for Linux
viruses* that I'm aware of, for the simple reason that A-V is a "horse
out of the barn" solution.  Such security issues should be, and are,
taken care of in other ways on properly designed operating systems that
do not have the trademark Microsoft Windows "insecure by design"
features.  The few Linux viruses "out there" don't actually spread in
practice.

However, there is A-V software that runs on Linux--but it's purpose is
to look for Microsoft Windows malware on Linux servers, so that (for
example) if one user puts some malware on a shared directory the server
doesn't inadvertently share it to another machine.  The only Free/Open
Source one I know of is ClamAV, which is by all accounts pretty good.

Dustin

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