Cross-Platform Sample Virus

[TBD]

Actually the virus is a virus and it does work on Linux.
The only reason it didn't reproduce and infect on current Linux systems was due to a GCC programming flaw and not the kernel itself.

If GCC was programmed correctly, and didn't overwrite this particular file everytime it ran - you got yourself a true Linux virus.

Linus tweaked the kernel code to force GCC to behave properly in order to test the virus, to see if it indeed could infect the Linux kernel - and it did.

The slam in the article is directed at Kaspersky AV ... apparently this virus code has been around for a few years in one form or another ... but Kaspersky is playing it up like it's an all new super-future-virus to boost their sales.

new link (it moved)
http://software.newsforge.com/softwa...?tid=78&tid=26

[scientica]

I don't get it. Why would you want to sample a virus?

"proof of concept"? to study it and figure out how to counter act it? boost sales (of AV software)? for the fun of the art form? (yes some consider virii an art form (others just see it as a means of f*ing with users), I wonder if there's still people that write "non harmfull virii" like the old ones for DOS, like that "ambulance virii"(iirc an ambulance stoped on teh screen and 'hospitalized' parts of the screen))

Once I thought that java would allow for xplatform virii, but then I learned it (java applets) was "chrooted"/"sandboxed", unlike ActiveX (which afaik "was better than java because it wasn't limited by sandbox restrictions", but then again, guess why java slapped ActiveX big time in the 'real world' and ActiveX favoured by virii coders and not "real" coders ).
I wonder how .net is (there's "mono" for linux iirc), after all C# is MS' attempt to replace java (afaik, since they lost a law suit to Sun).