is it necessary to use an antivirus in linux

more_red · January 26, 2009, 7:44pm

I’m new-ish to linux but really enjoying it.
Do i need to install an antivirus? (I have installed WINE.)
What is recommended?

the young but happy penguin,
JP.

Hypertails · January 26, 2009, 7:59pm

yes you should be worried about viruses

as and operating system becomes more and more popular
you’re going to recive more secturty issus and besides some windows viruses will run with wine and Linux viruses exist so not having an antivirus is like going out in the middle of winter with out proper dressing

boller4president · January 26, 2009, 8:07pm

Well I would personally advise you do so. Just make sure regardless of your decision that you follow SBP. Try to avoid visiting questionable websites and configure SUSE firewall to be rigid.

microchip8 · January 26, 2009, 8:16pm

one shouldn’t worry about viruses on Linux/UNIX at this point, even if it gets popular, the UNIX security model is much tougher than Windows. You all should worry more about rootkits - install rkhunter. I have ran various popular viruses under Wine and they all crash. If you use Linux as mail server for Windows machines, it’s advisable to filter mails on the Linux server before passing them over to Windows machines, so antivirus on Linux in this case is a sane thing

boller4president · January 26, 2009, 8:23pm

Windows in all fairness has moved away from administrator(root accounts) as well and is constantly reinventing it’s security model. Using a non-privileged account is prob the best prev measure you can take.

more_red · January 26, 2009, 8:28pm

What is SBP?

microchip8 · January 26, 2009, 8:32pm

this is only in the recent Vista/Win7 releases, the vast majority of people still use XP and to some degree 2000 (still used a lot by corporations)

more_red · January 26, 2009, 8:51pm

how does one use linux as a user without root privaledges? (i am the only user)
is ‘antivir’ a good package to install from YaST?
what is SBP?

microchip8 · January 26, 2009, 8:57pm

create a regular user account if you haven’t already (this usually should be done during installation by SUSE’s installer)
yes
no idea

in a terminal, you can type echo $UID and if you see any number above 0, means you’re using a normal user account - suse uses 1000, 1001, 1002, etc for normal accounts. Root is always 0

geoffro · January 26, 2009, 9:06pm

This is basically not true Linux experts wine over virus - vnunet.com.
There may well be ore issues as Linux becomes more popular.But as long as machines are run as normal users and not root the treat is extremely low.

/Geoff

more_red · January 26, 2009, 9:08pm

Yes, created account on installation. Checked with echo $UID, returned 1000. Thanks for that.

Should i be installing ‘antivir’ or something similar?
What is SBP?

microchip8 · January 26, 2009, 9:14pm

it’s your choice if you want antivir or not. Personally, I’ve never needed an antivirus program for Linux on my home computers. you may want to look into klamav too.

Ecky · January 26, 2009, 9:46pm

I think boller4president means Standard Best Practices when he says SBP

Such as the things like these that he suggested:

Try to avoid visiting questionable websites and configure SUSE firewall to be rigid.

Basically, being sensible in your net usage

boller4president · January 26, 2009, 10:42pm

No I meant Security Best Practices.

Ecky · January 26, 2009, 10:44pm

Two outta three ain’t bad

boller4president · January 26, 2009, 10:49pm

Same premise. To be fair it’s not a commonly used acronym.

ken_yap · January 26, 2009, 10:50pm

I don’t use WINE, and my mail reading program doesn’t execute attachments, so I don’t bother with AV.

If you have WINE, or your files could be used by Windows systems, perhaps you should use a scanner.