Linux - antivirus?

[courto]

I am not a Linux user, but I am interested to know what the deal is with Linux and virus protection? I have read that Linux is very hard to infect, but it is capable of transmitting viruses to other operating systems. Any information would be appreciated.
Chris.

[dead_eye]

Linux is pretty hard to hack (I had my friend port scan me and I port scanned his wME computer and the difference was amazing) and there is no way a virus can get in without you getting an email or downloading something. Since Linux partitions are not viewable by windows, it'll be pretty hard for a virus to get into windows that way, and as long as you keep your windows partitions unmounted or better yet not in the conifig file, then you'll be ok.

[OOPS!]

Hi,

Virii are not vastly harder to write for *nix from my understanding (but it does require more knowladge than the typical "scriptkiddie" has). The reason you don't see them is because Windows is much more widely popular. If you are going to write one, wouldn't you rather infect an OS that is on 90%+ of all the 'puters on the planet, or one that is used on only a few percent. Now add the fact that most *nixes are used for servers and not reading e-mail & surfing cuts it down further. Oh, and most people running Linux are very security aware (some are almost down right paranoid).

From a technical stand point, a barrier that has to be cracked on a *nix OS is that to execute a program, you have to have specific permission to do so. A virus would not have that permission. It can take up room on your disk, but unless the admin gives it permission to run, it can't. On a Win box, everybody has "root" access so anybody can run any *.exe.
There are anti-virus programs for Linux. But they are intended to mostly protect any Win boxes that are connected to them.

Hope this helps

OOPS!