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Comment by kodr | Hacker News Reader

it depends on the market share. Windows is the most used OS, that's why you see virus on it. I heard OSX started getting some after becoming popular once again a few years back.

As long as linux isn't too mainstream, it will be less a problem. But you could still use ClamAV if you share some files with other computers.

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"Sharing some files" seems vague though: i'm not sure if i correctly understand the attack vectors, but apart from running untrusted binaries (and as a normal user even that doesn't sound too scary -- or does it?), i guess it'd be via things like targeted exploitation e.g. buffer overflows or somesuch? Other than that it seems unlikely (but far from impossible of course) that an adversary could simply make my machine do evil stuff like spamming or leaking my files. (edit 2:) Also, i have to trust my distribution... That's actually the part i find most worrying.

edit: Also, i'm not sure i agree with you that Windows being the most widely used OS is the reason for the proliferation of viruses for that platform. As i understand it (not wanting to start a flamewar here, i genuinely don't know), it also suffers from some poor security architecture -- but maybe my information is outdated. But sure, the fact that "everyone" uses it makes it a more valuable target, of course.

At a high level, Windows and OSX share the same general security architecture: most stuff happens as a user, with root called in when necessary.

The single best advice to not getting infected is to not do stupid stuff.

your linux could be used as a shared drive (samba), without executing stuff. It could be nice to scan files if they can be used on other OSes.

As for Windows being unsafe, sure, it's easier to propagate stuff since you have root access. But like I said, viruses on OSX do exist.

I'm not sure i understand: do you mean i should scan my files, in case i share a file which would infect a Windows box? If so, i don't think i care. If you mean something else (i.e. somebody planting evil files on my "share"), please elaborate.

I also stated i do not run external-facing services. That applies to the Samba example, too (although i was fibbing: i allow keypair-only login via sshd).

> in case i share a file which would infect a Windows box?

yes, that's what I meant.

Nope. Haven't used A/V in 3 years now. On OSX, Windows or linux. When you're more tech friendly you know to sandboxie things that seem suspicious or test in a vm.

So you sandbox all the documents and images and movies and whatnots that come from untrusted sources? Because they all look suspicious? And after testing, how do you know you're infected?

Depends upon source of document; mostly now a days i can throw a document in google drive or a web editor and see it. PDF to HTML works good too; Movies are all from trusted sources streamed via Linux Server... So if its untrusted the clip would most likely loop with a blurred out screen saying i need a codec pack.

I don't do much locally other than write code. I use Web IDE's, Web Editors, Online Markup, Stream via HTML5... Not much to download now-a-days.

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