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Windows Viruses & Ubuntu Wine - Security Risk? EmptyTue Mar 13, 2012 6:17 pm by Coolname007

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2 posters

    Windows Viruses & Ubuntu Wine - Security Risk?

    Coolname007
    Coolname007
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    Windows Viruses & Ubuntu Wine - Security Risk? Empty Re: Windows Viruses & Ubuntu Wine - Security Risk?

    Post by Coolname007 Thu May 06, 2010 11:18 pm

    Justin wrote:People don't know what they're talking about. Viruses designed for Windows won't work on Ubuntu, the system make up is completely different. In fact, I think wines installed automatically. I remember running a Windows version of unetbootin in Ubuntu without issue a few years back.
    No, Wine is not installed automatically. The user has to install it.

    Here's a thread on the Ubuntu forums, that you might want to read on the subject:
    http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=72598

    It sort of contradicts your theory... Stick out tongue
    Justin
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    Windows Viruses & Ubuntu Wine - Security Risk? Empty Re: Windows Viruses & Ubuntu Wine - Security Risk?

    Post by Justin Fri May 07, 2010 6:03 pm

    Ok, I must have installed it with synaptic without realizing it Smile

    As for the vrius thing, big deal. Most it could do is install some extra files. Theres no registry for it to mess up, and the tatics Windows rootkits and the like use are Windows specific, so it couldn't hide itself.
    Coolname007
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    Windows Viruses & Ubuntu Wine - Security Risk? Empty Re: Windows Viruses & Ubuntu Wine - Security Risk?

    Post by Coolname007 Sun May 09, 2010 10:24 am

    Well, according to the experiences posted by the people in the link I just pointed out, it can do a lot more than just "install some extra files". The poster called "Mustard" reported that he was running etherape, and it started making connections to a lot of different places.

    Also,

    The SomeFool first-generation worm (Netsky.D according to some folks) actually installs its winlogon.exe file under Wine, and, as an added bonus, seems to get stuck in an endless loop, thus really having a negative performance impact on my Linux machine! I'll give this one 4/5 penguins for not only running and sort of doing what it was supposed to, but actually doing mildly bad things to Linux -- at least until I hit Control-C in the terminal from which I was running Wine to stop it dead.

    and,


    Wow, well I will have to say I just had a similar incident! I have a usb stick I use to take my work to different places. I took it to a printer here in Peru (all the windows computers here have viruses!) and it was infected. I didn't think nothing of it, I removed the infected files, except one that I didn't believe, because it was my program, and one I run in wine. I ran it and it acted really funny. The I cancelled it. The I ran the virus scan again, and there were more viruses (worms to be exact) on my usb stick. I ran the virus scan (clamscan) on my other partition and it too was full of viruses. I found out that
    YES VIRUSES WORK ON LINUX WITH WINE!
    I have yet to find where it messed up my Ubuntu system.... full scan going on at the moment... but it put viruses many places on my system, and that is not good because I often take my usb stick to my wife's computer (XP) and plug it in. I will post the scan results when it gets done, if it is worth posting.

    I'm not Re-installing
    I'm not Restoring
    I'm Removing viruses

    Does anyone have any good suggestions on how to do that? Thanks


    Shane

    and a little later...



    Ok, here is what happened. I ran the program maybe for about 5-10 Seconds and then killed it. However it put programs in memory, and they continued running for maybe about 10 min untill I killed everything. Here is what happened. I have a 8 Gig partition that is full of all my work. While the thing was running it managed to really expand itself. In every folder that I have in an 8Gb partition I have a very lot of partitions, it made and exe file after the folder name. Ex:

    Folder name - htmlwork
    inside that folder is an htmlwork.exe file that is a virus.
    I have literally 100's of viruses on that partition, in a matter of 10 min, and it is still scanning after 3 hours of scanning. Does anyone have a simple way of removing these? I can go and manually do it, but it will take me a considerable amount of time. The folder names very extensivelly, many of them contain spaces ect. HELP!

    A good peice of advice VIRUS SCAN EVERY .EXE, .BAT, .COM OR OTHER MISC WINDOWS FILE YOU DOWNLOAD BEFORE YOU RUN IT IN WINE!!!

    Shane

    and the end result of Shane's case...



    Well, two scans still finishing up, but I don't expect them to turn anything up, they haven't so far. I had a grand total of 1305 viruses on my computer. All in my /home/user partition and my /mnt/data partition that stores all my work. That is all! Probably will have to re-install a few of my wine programs but nothing more than time lost. If it had been windows that would not have been the case!

    Shane
    That's a lot of viruses, and according to Shane, many of them ran in memory, therefore slowing the system down. Granted, it didn't do nearly as much damage as virii do in Windows, but that's not the point. The point is, viruses CAN run under Wine, and they CAN do some damage to your system.

    But, anyway, I went ahead and installed Wine in Ubuntu 9.10. I will use it despite the risks, but I'll definitely be careful about what I run in it. I think the suggestion of virus scanning every Windows file before running it in Wine is a good one, and I'll be sure to do it.
    Justin
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    Windows Viruses & Ubuntu Wine - Security Risk? Empty Re: Windows Viruses & Ubuntu Wine - Security Risk?

    Post by Justin Sun May 09, 2010 5:50 pm

    I did read through that thread. My observations are... the threat level is low. Once its running of course it could download more garbage (looks like that paticular threat turns your computer into a server to host pirated software and other stuff), but its easily terminated, and since its not running in Windows you wouldn't need a re-install. winlogon probably runs in a continuous loop because its trying to do something it could only do successfully it it were running in a Windows system.

    But yes, by all means scan everything. Any OS isn't bullet proof. Not Wines fault if you end up executing something thats bad, that could happen no matter what OS you're using. Its common sense.
    Coolname007
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    Windows Viruses & Ubuntu Wine - Security Risk? Empty Re: Windows Viruses & Ubuntu Wine - Security Risk?

    Post by Coolname007 Sun May 09, 2010 7:57 pm

    Justin wrote:I did read through that thread. My observations are... the threat level is low.
    I am certainly not disputing that fact. I'm only contradicting your statements that first Windows viruses can't run under Wine, and then next that they can, but they can't do any damage.
    Not trying to start a flame-war or anything, just pointing out my own findings, is all.

    Once its running of course it could download more garbage (looks like that paticular threat turns your computer into a server to host pirated software and other stuff), but its easily terminated, and since its not running in Windows you wouldn't need a re-install.
    True enough. But you still have to spend a lot of time afterwards, removing all that crap that it downloaded... Wink And seeing as some of them started in memory, you also have useless crap running in the background, slowing down your system, until you notice it and terminate their processes. And I can easily picture a scenario where the user doesn't actually intentionally start the virus himself, like the posters in that link did, but the virus starts because its attached to a Windows program you run intentionally. It can happen, of that I have no doubt...

    winlogon probably runs in a continuous loop because its trying to do something it could only do successfully it it were running in a Windows system.
    I agree.

    But yes, by all means scan everything. Any OS isn't bullet proof. Not Wines fault if you end up executing something thats bad, that could happen no matter what OS you're using. Its common sense.
    I was not implying any of that. And anyway, like I already mentioned, I installed Wine, and I plan on trying it out soon. There are perfectly good programs you can run in Wine, which can be useful in many situations, and so I am certainly not suggesting that Wine shouldn't be used, or anything like that. Remember, this discussion started because you disputed my statement that Windows viruses can run under Wine. And I just proved that they can.

    End of topic.

    guitar

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