"Linux Virus Protection, you say, isn't that redundant? Why Linux
itself is virus protection. A malicious program that seeks to infect system files is going to
have very little success when invoked by a non-root user. So while our hearts are filled
with great sorrow over the travails of our Windows friends who have had to do battle
with Melissa, Chernobyl and ExploreZip, we have felt insulated from those threats
ourselves. Those days are rapidly coming to an end. Not because Linux is highly susceptible
to virii, but because the key to enterprise acceptance of Linux is its ability to be highly
integrated with corporate standards, even if it means solving problems caused by other
operating systems."
"In this increasingly interconnected world, the indirect effects of problematic systems
can be felt by everyone. When the Melissa virus hit, some Linux servers' sendmail became
overloaded with messages and had to shut down. When ExploreZip exploded, some Linux
servers running Samba had to contend with Windows clients deleting data files, which had
to be restored. In this sense, Linux is only immune to virii if you unplug it from the
network."
