Linux viruses beat AV tools

WONDER OS LINUX is vulnerable to virus attack, an amazed world learned yesterday. The operating system, widely touted as being a million times better than Windows, was exposed to 25 Linux-specific viruses and only three AV tools caught all the little blighters.

Now, excuse us for a moment, but we thought Linux was virus-free, super secure and absolutely wonderful. How come there are even antivirus tools developed for it, let alone 25 viruses? Could it be that the inviolability of Linux is just a load of old BS? Who writes the virii? Are they available from Microsoft for $19.99 packaged as 'Entertainment Pack '07 for Linux'?

According to a live test of antivirus products for Linux conducted at the LinuxWorld event in San Francisco, 10 antivirus products were confronted with 25 viruses, many submitted by members of the audience to see if the AV tools would catch them.

Rather tragically, only three of the antivirus tools caught and blocked all 25 viruses , with one catching fewer than 10 per cent.

According to darkreading.com, Kaspersky, Symantec and open source contender Clam AV all caught every virus they were thrown. FProt and Sophos caught 94 percent; McAfee caught 89 percent; and GlobalHauri, Fortinet, and SonicWall caught 61 percent. WatchGuard's Linux AV tool, caught fewer than 6 percent of the viruses sent to it.

Given that IBM's X-Force security auditors reported that, in 2006, the super-secure Firefox browser had 64 critical vulnerabilities compared with 34 for Internet Explorer, perhaps it's time for the open sauce community to shut up about the superior security of its products. µ

L'INQ
More shocking details here