Slowly making the move to Linux (Pop!_OS) and one thing I have noticed is that it seems to lack an in-built virus scanner like Windows has.
Is there an equivalent? Does it even matter? Does it even matter in Windows? Or have I been Pavloved into scanning my drives for AI training?
Thanks.
Most people don't bother - I have been running for years without one and not caught anything yet.
Very few viruses target linux per se,
It's only really WIndows that suffers from this. Last time I looked, there were 144,000 Windows viruses. And that was 16 years ago. Still essentially none for macOS, or for Linux. I do nothing for macOS, relying on whatever Apple has built-in (there is something but I know nothing about it). I do nothing for my Linux VMs, either.
Am 28/02/2024 um 15:34 schrieb David Paste:
Because you don't need any. I have used Linux for 20 years and I have never needed one.
ClamAV should be your starting point. Although I think it's a Linux based virus scanner that really checks windows files.
Wrong, as always. Android does too.
Linux has vulnerabilities just like any system, however the attack vectors tend to be different.
Most Linux exploits are directed directly against the system over the network, rather than via an end user by email.
This is a reflection of the use cases. Tons of linux boxes are internet facing and running as servers for all manner of things. Relativly few are actually used as desktop machines. So when developing exploits you get much better reward for the effort working out how to get into a machine via one of its installed network services like Apache, WordPress, Drupal, MySQL, PHPMyAdmin etc.
So running a Linux desktop is a great start to security ...
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