--- Anant Narayanan wrote:
If I were to make a virus, I would cloak it under the pretext of some other useful software. Think of a binary blob that supposedly installs a Flash Player on your system, or the Netbeans IDE, or some graphics drivers (ATi/nVidia?). You need to run the binary as root, and you will do so. I'll show you a progress dialog and all the works, but do some damage in the background - and the user is none- the-wiser.
If the source of acquiring the binary blob is trusted, the damage could be fatal - depending on the damage in the background.
At FOSS.IN/2006 conference, it was stated, the security of packages uploaded to repos or accepted as a package is a major concern for Debian Developers and these packages are monitored carefully.
This leads us to a point, Linux distribution users are / should become really vigilant about how they update, install and operate their system. For most Windows users, it is "Next -> Next -> ... -> Finish". "XYZ is successfully installed". Is it so?
-- FSF of India Associate Fellow - http://www.gnu.org.in http://db.glug-bom.org/wiki/index.php ubunturos @ freenode
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