Do you have any antivirus recomendations for Linux.

  • bushvin@pathfinder.social
    634·
    1 year ago

    I wouldn’t recommend using anti-virus software. It usually creates a lot more overhead, plus it usually mimics existing solutions already in linux. The only viruses I have ever caught using an anti-virus software on Linux are the test viruses to see if all is working fine.

    Anyway, here’s my 20+ enterprise experience recommendations with Linux :

    • enable secure boot: will disable launching non-signed kernel modules (prevent root kits)
    • enable firewall: and only allow ports you really need.
    • SELinux: it is getting better, and it will prevent processes to access resources out of their scope. It can be problematic if you don’t know it (and it is complex to understand). But if it doesn’t hinder you, don’t touch it. I do not know AppArmor, but it is supposed to be similar.
    • disable root over ssh: or only allow ssh keys, or disable ssh altogether if you do not need it.
    • avoid using root: make sure you have a personal account set up with sudo rights to root WITH password.
    • only use trusted software: package managers like apt and rpm tend to have built in functionality to check the state and status of your installed software. Use trusted software repositories only. Often recommended by the distro maintainers. Stay away from use this script scripts unless you can read them and determine if they’re the real thing.

    Adhering to these principles will get you a long way!

    edit: added section about software sources courtesy of @dragnucs@lemmy.ml

    • stravanasu@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
      3·
      1 year ago

      Thank you for the advice!

      Firewall on Linux is something I still don’t understand, and explanations found on Internet have always confused me. Do you happen to know some good tutorial to share? Or maybe one doesn’t need to do anything at all in distros like Ubuntu?

      Regarding ssh: you only mean incoming ssh, right?

      • stravanasu@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
        3·
        1 year ago

        @bushvin@pathfinder.social @toikpi@feddit.uk @hevov@discuss.tchncs.de @ChonkaLoo@lemmy.world @HotBoxghost2743@lemmy.ml @c1177johuk@lemmy.world (I’m surely forgetting someone, sorry)

        Thank you ALL for the great advice and guides! I’m writing from behind a laptop firewall now, and don’t notice anything :) It was smoother than I expected. In the end I used UFW because it was already installed, but I’ll take a look at firewalld too in some days! I don’t have any incoming ssh connections (not a server), so I didn’t need to worry about that :)

        Really great people here at Lemmy :)

      • hevov@discuss.tchncs.de
        3·
        1 year ago

        I don’t think you need to configure your firewall. Firewalls are usualy used to block incomming connectings. Usualy a Firewall that blocks all incomming connections is already active on your modem/router. Adding exception to the modem/router Firewall usualy happen through port forwords.

      • bushvin@pathfinder.socialEnglish
        2·
        1 year ago

        ebtables and iptables can be very complex. And I failed my 1st RHCE exam because of them. But once you learn, you will never unlearn, as they are quite beautifully crafted. You just need to get into the mindset of the people who wrote the tools…

        Look into firewalld It has a rather simplified cli interface: firewall-cmd

        The manpages will tell you a lot.

        firewall-cmd —add-service=ssh Will open the ports for your ssh daemon until you reload your firewall or reboot your system firewall-cmd —permanent —add-service=ssh Will open the ssh ports until you remove them

        firewall-cmd —list-all Will show you the current firewall config

        • kool_newt@lemm.ee
          4·
          1 year ago

          Try nftables directly, it’s simple and straightforward, scripting syntax is easy.

        • c1177johuk@lemmy.world
          3·
          1 year ago

          Another simpler frontend for iptables I think is well suited for desktop environemnts is ufw. It does what it’s supposed to do and is extremely simple to use

          • bushvin@pathfinder.social
            1·
            1 year ago

            I personally do not know ufw, but if it does what it must, then you’re solid.

            Linux is also about choices: do stuff the way you choose to, and makes you comfortable.

      • bushvin@pathfinder.socialEnglish
        2·
        1 year ago

        Yes, usually you configure your endpoint firewall to block incoming traffic, while allowing all outgoing.

        Unless you’re in a very secure zone, like DMZ’s.

  • rayon@lemm.ee
    224·
    1 year ago

    I don’t understand why we keep telling new users that it is useless to use an antivirus on Linux. For people with computer knowledge, sure. However more widespread Linux adoption will mean more casual users will start using it. Most of them don’t have the “common sense” that is often mentioned ; these users will eventually fall for scams that tell them to run programs attached in emails or random bash scripts from the internet. The possibility is small, but it’s not zero, so why not protect against it?

    • XTL@sopuli.xyz
      19·
      1 year ago

      Because snake oil is not helping, or a working substitute.

      Security is a process, not a solution.

        • bushvin@pathfinder.social
          1·
          1 year ago

          The problem with AV s/w in my experience, is that they do not work very well, and hinder the system’s functioning, because they provide duplicate behaviour of existing solutions and compete with them directly.

          In one instance I discovered McAfee to disable write access to /etc/{passwd,shadow,group} effectively disabling a user to change their password. While SELinux will properly handle that by limiting processes, instead of creating a process that would make sure those files aren’t modified by anyone.

          People need to understand Linux comes pre-equipped with all the necessary tools and bolts to protect their systems. They just don’t all live in the same GUI, because of the real complexity involved with malware…

      • rayon@lemm.ee
        12·
        1 year ago

        You might be legitimately annoyed by the amount of free antivirus software on Windows that don’t offer good protection, on top of being filled with ads. But I don’t agree that scanning for malicious files and preventing dangerous commands (regardless of how good the implementation is) can be labelled as snake oil.

    • FoxBJK@midwest.socialEnglish
      11·
      1 year ago

      Same thing happened on macOS. We used to say it’s immune because everything was written only for Windows. That stopped being true a long time ago and the majority of web servers have been running Linux for a decade. Doesn’t seem so crazy to me that someone would want to regularly scan their Linux boxes for bad code.

    • lemmyvore@feddit.nlEnglish
      101·
      1 year ago

      You should protect against it, but antiviruses are not the answer. It’s more efficient to prevent breaches by building good security into software by design (and keeping your system up to date) than to play an endless game of catch-up enumerating pieces of malware after they’re already circulating.

      Windows tried this approach and it turned into a mess, antivirus companies turned into villains themselves and it still didn’t fix the underlying problems. Eventually they came around to actually fixing security problems, and keeping Windows up to date, and offering a curated source of apps and so on.

      You can still use scanning on Linux, but apply it efficiently on entry points, like attachments in your email client or your Downloads dir. Don’t run a scanner all the time on all your processes and files, that’s a gross waste of resources.

      It also makes no sense for a properly secured modern system. Take for example Android, where a userspace antivirus can’t work because userspace processes are isolated from each other, and a system level antivirus cannot be trusted because it needs to download signatures externally and can (and probably will) be a breach of privacy.

      • rayon@lemm.ee
        1·
        1 year ago

        I basically agree with all the points you are making. Only scan downloads, email attachments and whatnot. Don’t try to play cat and mouse with sophisticated malware because that’s a waste of resources. I don’t think software like this exists?

        Perhaps SELinux on desktop is the way to go as other posts are suggesting, although I heard that it has some usability problems and can break some programs.

    • Potatos_are_not_friends@lemmy.world
      2·
      1 year ago

      Schrödinger’s Linux fanbase

      Linux is so much better and easy to use for casual users. But in order to use it, you have to understand terminal, bash scripting, understand permissions, understand the difference between various flavors, etc

    • hevov@discuss.tchncs.de
      2·
      1 year ago

      Thanks for the helpful list. I had concerns in the past about flatpak, because as far as I know the dependencies are bundled into the flatpak and are not using the latest version of your distro. But that means that some flatpaks probably use outdated and unsecure dependencies.

      Whats your opinion on that matter?

      • pastermil@sh.itjust.works
        3·
        1 year ago

        I found flatpak to in fact be ahead of distros’ packages. Granted, I use distros that are rather conservative on update (Debian, Gentoo, and Linux Mint). If you use something bleeding edge like Arch, things may be different, but shouldn’t be far off.

        Either way, I find flatpak to be reliable.

    • zwekihoyy@lemmy.ml
      1·
      1 year ago

      do not use browsers from flatpak. browsers have their own built in sandbox that is crippled or sometimes fully disabled in order to make flatpaks sandboxing work, which are often less restrictive than the browser’s.

      flatpak is better than nothing for the average user but most packages completely ignore the sandboxing it is supposed to use and require manual changes on flatseal.

    • AFlyingCar@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      I would actually like to see your Bubblewrap script if you wouldn’t mind sharing. I’ve been thinking about trying to learn how to use it for a while now, but I’ve kept putting it off since getting Xorg programs to work with it seemed difficult/confusing to me.

  • ashtefere@lemmy.world
    161·
    1 year ago

    Most antivirus software are just root level tools to harvest your data, that pretend to help

  • eatstorming@lemmy.world
    11·
    1 year ago

    1. Do not run a root account for regular stuff. This is a lot less common now since most distros require you to create a non-root account during install and a lot of the systems annoy you if you’re running as root, but you’d be surprised by the sheer number of people who use accounts with UID 0 daily. This may also be caused by “”“more experienced”“” friends/family setting it up that way to try cutting corners regarding access rights, but the bottom line is: don’t be that person. Use root when necessary only.

    2. Get into the habit of not blindly running every command you see online or trying every trick you read/hear, at least not on your main system. Try to setup a VM (or multiple) for the purpose of trying stuff out or running something you’re not sure what the impact might be.

    3. Keep your system updated, from kernel to userland.

    4. Get into the habit of reading news regarding exploits, malware and the responses for them. You don’t need to become an infosec professional or even understand what they actually do. What is important is for you to learn what to avoid and when something really bad is discovered so you can update as soon as possible.

    These 4 steps are arguably more important and create better results than any anti-virus could ever hope to do for you. They won’t ever get to 100% security, but then again, nothing will.

  • Gamey@lemmy.world
    122·
    1 year ago

    Unless you are in a cooperate environment or very careless with the stuff you download and commands you run you shouldn’t need one!

  • drwankingstein@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    8·
    1 year ago

    Currently I don’t like any of the common AV solutions, ClamAV is the best we have and has great signature based antivirus, with many excellent third party virus signatures (I even use it on windows). however ClamAV has no heuristic based capabilities which means it’s lacking quite a bit in that regard.

    I really wish we had a decent hurestics based AV solution oriented to consumers but afaik none really exist that are any good.

  • shirro@aussie.zoneEnglish
    8·
    1 year ago

    The typical consumer Windows antivirus was designed to solve a different set of problems in a different environment and analysing files for signatures and behaviors against known threats was very valuable when so many people were running executables from unsafe sources intentionally or not. Even on Windows an antivirus has never been the best way to secure a machine. It was always the lowest common denominator solution that you put on everyone’s machine because it was better than nothing.

    Linux has been well served for a long time by the division or privileges between root and users and signed trusted distro sources. The linux desktop is trending towards containerized flatpak applications running in seperate namespaces with additonal protection via seccomp. Try and understand the protections Linux provides and how to best take advantage of them first and only reach for an antivirus if you still think it is needed.

  • staticnoise@infosec.pubEnglish
    7·
    1 year ago

    If you’re looking for personal antivirus, you probably don’t need one. ClamAV is an option, but it is aimed at scanning emails rather than anything else. If you’re looking to protect your company or a network of computers, then Wazuh is a great choice.