🚀 go-pugleaf

kludge@grissom.larc.nasa.gov (Scott Dorsey) writes:

> Actually, I wouldn't consider Unix to be typical either.  Yes, it's

Well, my example supposed that the protection in Unix actually works
and that there are no security bugs... After all, it was just a
theoretical example... :-)

> possible for a user to infect his own personal executable, then share
> that executable with another user who then gets his own executables
> infected.  True enough.  But, it's not possible for them to infect
> the operating system unless one of those user executables is run by
> an account with permissions (which should never happen).  The chances
> to spread are greatly reduced, and the chances of mass spread through
> the operating system are eliminated.

This is exactly what I said. The "operating system executables" are
just owned by one of the users. Therefore, infecting them is just as
easy (or just as difficult) as infecting another user. The virus has
to be executed by someone with the proper privileges (the owner of the
files or somebody with higher privileges). And the reduced spread is a
result exactly of the reduced sharing...

> >source code. You do not walk around with infected tapes and do not run
> >the programs on them on different machines, as you do in the PC world.
> >That's why, in multi-user systems the worms and the trojans are of
> >much more concern than the usual viruses.

> This is the case with current Unix systems, but it may not always be the
> case, unfortunately.

Dunno... Once people switch to real operating systems, the viruses
will stop using silly hacks as they are doing now. They will become
better behaved, if they want to spread. But I still doubt that in the
future users will share executables more often than now... Of course,
in this case we might see viruses that cary multiple segments of code,
for most popular platforms - like the Morris worm did...

Regards,
Vesselin
-- 
Vesselin Vladimirov Bontchev          Virus Test Center, University of Hamburg
Tel.:+49-40-54715-224, Fax: +49-40-54715-226      Fachbereich Informatik - AGN
< PGP 2.1 public key available on request. > Vogt-Koelln-Strasse 30, rm. 107 C
e-mail: bontchev@fbihh.informatik.uni-hamburg.de    D-2000 Hamburg 54, Germany