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[–] 30 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

First of all, username checks out.

Second, the thing about viruses (as opposed to other types of exploits) is that the user has to run them, and Linux doesn't make downloaded files executable by default the way Windows does. Nor are Linux users conditioned to download programs from random sketchy sources the way Windows users do.

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  • [–] 30 points 3 weeks ago (1 child)

    Nor are Linux users conditioned to download programs from random sketchy sources the way Windows users do.

    I think about this every time install instructions for something are "run this terminal command to add our repo to your sources". Would probably be pretty easy to get an auto-updating attack path for the unsuspecting. The first drop doesn't even need to be malicious, just ship the virus as an update.

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  • [–] 12 points 3 weeks ago

    Yeah, if you're doing some sort of curl | sh nonsense you'd better trust whoever is supplying that script implicitly. On the bright side, I've only ever seen that on the first-party website of the project being installed, so it could be worse.

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  • [–] 5 points 3 weeks ago

    I think the biggest risk now is supply chain poisoning, where a system update or package installation runs executable code alongside it that can be malicious, as most supply chains for Linux distros don’t have automatic security checks in place but rather rely on the security of the identity of the package maintainer. If their setup gets compromised that’s the bigger risk rather than the traditional “virus” like you said

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