David D. Hagood wrote:
On 01/27/2005 03:03 PM, Troy Rollo wrote:
Even if they don't run Outlook Express, with Linux 2.6 there is a facility to have the kernel recognise foreign executable file formats and run them by means of another executable. If used to run Wine executables (and somebody on /. yesterday indicated they had done this), it makes Windows executables as easy to run as native Linux executables ("program.exe" works just as well as "wine program.exe" in such a case).
Yes, but then the kernel will only execute the file IF it has execute permissions - so when the worm drops BackOriface.exe on your drive and tries to run it, it won't as it won't have had the +x bit set.
And a worm smart enough to realize it is running under Wine and able to make the syscall to set the +x bit probably will be smart enough to get a native executable for the infection.
I see I've stirred up a lot of different opinions and interesting points regarding this particular topic :)
Anyway - I can see that a few of my statements weren't completely true. More of my intention was to make it a point that such information should probably be made more publicly known. I'm well aware that the status of wine is constantly changing - and that the more windows applications we are able to run - the more viruses we are also able to run, however, I have explained the current status of wine's potential risk of being infected by a virus to more than a few people - and it appears to be very important information(which it should be) to many businesses and the like.
I know there is a lot of things currently going on with wine, and such a task is not a top priority - especially for the developers, however, I'd be happy to work with someone to put together a summary of this information that could be put on the site - if it's at all feasible to do such a thing.
Thank you all who took the time to read my post and reply - I appreciate it.
--Brad DeMorrow