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will virus infect other machines in the same wireless network?

" snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:

Yes they will spread on a LAN where the machines are sharing resouces once the malware has reached a machine and is executed.

There are self populating worms that will seek out and infect other machines that it finds unprotected and drop its payload once it is executed. That's the vast majority of unsolicited inbound traffic that will hit a firewall and is blocked are other machines that have self populating malware seeking other machines on the Internet that are not protected and infect them.

It doesn't matter if the machine is on a Local Area Network (LAN) or Wide Area Network (WAN/Internet) as they are both networks and if the machine is open to malware attacks, it doesn't matter if it's a dial-up, ADSL, Broad Band cable or whatever.

Usually, malware attacks the machine because the user has contributed to it in someway with the happy fingers that click on unknown links, go to dubious WEB sites or click on and open unknown email attachments. Once, malware has reached the machine and is executed, it's over.

Duane :)

Reply to
Duane Arnold
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An excellent example of the above, is the recent Sony DRM fiasco. Playing a DRM CD places malware on a Windows computer. With Linux, where users normally do not run as root, the DRM software couldn't do anything harmful to the computer.

Unlike with Windows, in Linux, if I have to do something that requires root permissions, I am prompted for the root password. Then, only that app gets root permissions. In Windows, that doesn't happen. If a user wants to be able to do such things, he has to run as admin, which leaves the system wide open. Many Windows users always run as admin, because it's so inconvenient to not do so.

Reply to
James Knott

No, I mean that by reducing paths, bright ugly desktops when root etc., they discourage users from running as root. About the only one I'm aware of that defaults to a root user is Linspire. I guess they tried too hard to be like Windows. ;-)

And no, not all users need to run as root (or admin in Windows). For example, a user in an office environment generally has no need to run as root or admin. While I know the root password for my home computer, I only have to use it when installing or configuring something. It's not necessary for daily use. There are a few methods of allowing a user temporary root rights in Linux, such as su, suid, sudoers etc. In fact, I use sudoers on my notebook, so that I, as a user, can switch from ethernet to wifi or static to DHCP address etc. At no time do I have to use the root password to do this.

Reply to
James Knott

What do you mean? No "su" command? No SUID or SGID mode settings for executables?

Someone who has installed any variety of U*IX on their desktop MUST run as root for any number of reasons, and many applications MUST run SUID root.

Reply to
Bert Hyman
[POSTED TO alt.internet.wireless - REPLY ON USENET PLEASE]

In fact a great many Linux users run as root.

Reply to
John Navas

James Knott wrote in news:rs2dneDjOePDmA7enZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@rogers.com:

The fact that it can be infected is the point Windows or not and I have seen reports where Linux was attacked by a virus even through a browser as the user with the happy fingers clicked.

Duane :)

Reply to
Duane Arnold

James Knott wrote in news:3bWdnUPIYvZavw7enZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@rogers.com:

What do you think we are stupid? We know all of this as it's been mentioned 1,000 million times. The bottom line is that the Linux O/S can be attacked just as easily as the MS O/S in the hands of the clueless. I am certainly not being attacked using the MS O/S by malware using the Windows O/S on the road or my home office/network set-up. And on top of that, that Linux O/S is being attacked in the hands of the professionals. Once again, none of these O/S(s) are infallible as long as a Human Being as anything to do with them.

Duane :)

Reply to
Duane Arnold

Some viruses propigated by walking through a WIndows workgroup or domain. If you belonged to one, it would attempt to infect you. Others used shared network drives.

Many of the viruses that are coded to spread across the network spread across the Internet. By that I mean the infected PC actually walks through every IP address in the world attempting to infect every Interent address. Theoretically that would be 4.3 billion addresses, but in reality less than 3 billion are used. More than 30% of the addresses on the internet have not been issued yet.

So whether you are connected wired or wireless doesn't matter. If the virus has a infection vector open to you, you are at risk. DiGiTAL_ViNYL (no email)

Reply to
DigitalVinyl

And now, almost 20 years later, there are more than 70,000 Windows viruses, worms, and other exploits circulating but still only a handful of *nix exploits.

Windows was not designed to be a networked, multi-user system -- these were grafted on at a leter date. *nix OTOH, was designed for such an environment and is inherently less vulnerable to such exploits.

The Morris worm took advantage of *nix programmers and administrators of that time not practicing strict privelege separation. These days you'd be hard-pressed to find commonly used server software that doesn't run at reduced privleges.

Reply to
John Thompson

Yes, there are. They're for scanning files and mail on linux servers for

*Windows* clients. IOW, the scanning is not for linux viruses attacking the linux machine, but for Windows viruses that the linux server might otherwise pass on to Windows clients.
Reply to
John Thompson

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