Sound of silence

Abstract Every one of us has heard about a number of virus outbreaks lately. There has been a battle between authors of Netsky and Bagle, the release of the Sasser network worm and a great deal of others. But one thing is common – that there have been no virus outbreaks for other platforms but Windows. This could lead one to think that there is no malware for other platforms. Unfortunately this is not true. Even Linux has its malware, which is looked at more closely later in this article. Also outbreaks for Windows do affect users of other platforms as well. If nothing else, everybody has been receiving a number of emails with Windows binaries attached. Does this mean that Linux users are safe from malicious code? While viruses and worms seem to be a relatively small threat in Linux today, unfortunately the reality is not quite that simple – there is other malicious software that is used to break into Linux systems. Past and present Linux malware is summarized in this article, with speculation about future developments in the area.