On 01/08/2012 03:57 PM, Bob I wrote:


On 1/8/2012 8:36 AM, Roy Smith wrote:
On 1/8/2012 5:13 AM, BillW50 wrote:
In , philo wrote:
All well and good but in the case of root kits... what would lead
someone to suspect one is when their credit card or bank account
gets compromised... in other words *too late*

That's why I moved over to Linux 2+ years ago

You are a Linux user and don't know what Root means? That is where
the rootkit was originally created for. Hacking into Linux and Unix
machines. It just amazes me how many Linux users who knows nothing
about Linux malware. Most Linux users don't run AV software or
anything. And they could be totally infected with malware and still
be totally clueless.

I honestly didn't know that, so I went to Wikipedia and found this:

The term rootkit or root kit originally referred to a
maliciously-modified set of administrative tools for a Unix-like
operating system that granted "root" access. If an intruder could
replace the standard administrative tools on a system with a rootkit,
the intruder could obtain root access over the system whilst
simultaneously concealing these activities from the legitimate system
administrator. These first generation rootkits were trivial to detect
by using tools such as Tripwire that had not been compromised to
access the same information.

It amazes me how the most die-hard Linux user claims that they are
impervious to viruses. Though truth be know it's more likely that there
isn't much of an interest in targeting such a small demographic, and the
interest is in targeting the most common OS on PCs today. Now if things
were the other way and Linux was the most popular OS on PCs then we
would be hearing about viruses on them instead.


Devout Linux and Apple users rely on "security by obscurity", they just
don't know that is what it is called.

Devout Windows users like you believe the MS FUD. Windows 7 is more
secure than XP due to its UAC and other features but enjoys a large
market share. Oops.

--
Alias