Being Infected With Malware
On my personal computers I have experienced software viruses only twice. Once was in the late 1990s. At that time I was running NT4 Workstation. Much like today, an acquaintance sent me an email with a dancing pigs attachment. Some people are easily amused and are eager to share their discoveries. Even in that date I was wary of attachments. A quick virus scan confirmed my suspicion.
The other time I saw a virus was in the early 1990s. At that time I was running Windows for Workgroups and MS-DOS. I had requested a demo disk from a vendor. A single 1.44 MB floppy disk. Those were the days of more efficient software. The floppy arrived infected. I do not remember how I discovered the infection. I phoned the vendor and a representative confirmed the infection.
For the years that I ran Windows I seldom installed third party software. Either I paid a known vendor or deeply researched the web before downloading.
I have not run anti-virus software in many years. I am not lackadaisical or pompous, but using a Linux based system limits most concerns. I have toyed with ClamAV, but that is all.
While packages in a distro repo system are more difficult to infect than Windows software, the task is hardly impossible. Ask the Linux Mint maintainers.
One day Linux systems will become more popular malware targets. Thankfully I have about three decades of decent computer usage habits and a half decent baloney detector.
Posted: Category: Commentary Tagged: General
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