On Mon, 13 Aug 2001, david higgins wrote:
> I know I'm inviting you all to bombard me with prions, but surely the main
> reason there aren't more Linux and MacOS viruses is because most people
> *only* use Windows? Why write a virus that is *only* limited to a small
> audience?
It just seems to me that the Microsoft Environment leaves itself
open to the opportunity.
It's been that way since the original viruses that hooked into the int21
handler in DOS!
While UNIX is well documented and has lots of potential viral development
tools available, the virii are typically limited to userland, and
can't get at root unless the user is silly enough to give up their
privileges. Mind you, the Sendmail Internet worm from all those
years ago was a pretty good attempt but it was actually not meant
to wreak the havoc that it did - it was an experiment that escaped the lab.
Note that I may have the wrong end of the stick here, as the Internet worm
was before my (computing) time but that's what I recall reading.
It still doesn't explain the Mac. Perhaps someone else could
elucidate?
I remember having my Atari 1040ST that was vulnerable to viruses.
They were out there and very annoying. Most of them were not
detructive of data but would do weird things to your screen
or play annoying sounds via the on board sound chip. Thankfully they
were also rare and there were fixes available....
I think the reason that MS makes such an inviting target is not just
the installed base of products but the fact that the thing is just so easy
to break. If I were a virus writer, I'd be looking for a bigger challenge...
Not that I would consider such a thing of course!! :)
rachel
-- Rachel Polanskis Optus/Excite@Home UNIX Administrator 100 Harris Street IT Operations Pyrmont, Sydney NSW rachel@excitehome.com.au Ph: (+61 2) 900 51144
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