On Thu, 08 Dec 2005 16:10:49 GMT, Lloyd E. Sponenburgh wrote:

"Dave Hinz" wrote in message
...
Great. I'll get a scanner to watch for all zero of the real Linux and
Mac OSX viruses, and keep counting all none of them on my systems.

There is ONE wild Linux virus -- Bliss. It is still out there, but
propagates slowly, and dies young because of the natural user-limited
create, read, and write priveleges inherent with 'ix-es of all ken.

Looks to be limited to elf-style executables, and you have to install
and run it as root.

Unless
a careless user is abusing root privileges (usually on a single-user system)
an infectious binary has little chance of replacing an executable.

There ya go. It's no different than calling this a virus:
1. Become root.
2. type this:
cd /
rm -rf *

There was (maybe still is) one OS-X virus in the wild -- Switchback. It
probably never had more than a hundred live copies going worldwide at one
time. Slow to propagate, and easy to kill, it had virtually zero impact on
Mac users.

I checked the usual sources for info on that, and could only find
"lowendmac.com" and references to that site describing it. CIAC,
F-secure, symantec, sophos...nobody knows about this virus. Do you have
a cite from an actual authority I could read about this at? I suspect
it's just FUD.

Dave Hinz