[Techtalk] Linux email viruses

[Mary]

On Fri, Jul 23, 2004, Conor Daly wrote:
> Note the important "as root" bit.  As a plain user it would have been
> useless..

This is true, but any virus that did any of the following as an ordinary
user would be harmful:

 1. Did "rm -rf ~/" [sure, it isn't the whole machine, but that's not
 much consolation when your home dir just got wiped]

 2. Emailed itself to everyone in your address book

 3. Attempted to break into other machines by launching processes as
 your user

With any luck, Linux mail clients will appropriately warn the user
before launching executable attachments so this stuff would not be
effective but "plain users" have plenty enough power for viruses to hurt
them, should there ever exist a virus that spreads effectively on Linux
machines or between particular Linux mail clients.

-Mary