[Gllug] Virus on Linux/Mac

[Jason Clifford]

On Fri, 2007-09-21 at 09:53 +0100, Peter Childs wrote:
> I'm not so sure, its perfectly possible to write a virus into a
> Openoffice macro and get it to cause trouble in both Windows, Linux
> and MacOS. Also could write it to infect Mozillia and effect Firefox,
> Thunderbird etc etc. might not be able to cause some types of problem
> but cause cause just as much havoc none the less. Linux is not imune
> to viruses its just we are not a primary target... yet..... 

Nothing new about that. Trojans are possible on every platform however
one with any decent level of privilege separation does mean that only
the users own files (and those he has write privileges to) are affected
rather than the system as a whole.

Specific to OpenOffice I think you will find that by default it does not
run macros from untrusted sources without explicit permission to do so -
this should prevent the scenario you propose above if the user bothers
to read what is on the screen in front of him. If not then he should not
be using a computer.

Jason

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