FreeBSD + Malware

chavez243ca · #1 February 21st, 2011, 20:05

Does anybody have any information, preferably with / incl. verifiable reference material, with regard to the incidence/prevalence of malware that targets the BSD operating system. Esp. any figures to show "in-the-wild" numbers.

The corp I work for has been reviewing our growing number of BSD boxen and is asking questions about anti-virus. From what I see, most implementations of AV on unix-like OSes is mainly to prevent the spread of Windows malware. The security vendors, of course, are courting management with the "no OS is safe" line. I agree to some extent - but our BSD systems are almost entirely server setups - no X11, no browsers, no linux compat, no Java runtime etc.

Most documentation I've reviewed (NIST, SANS, CIS etc.) rarely mentions antivirus and *nix.

FWIW - I'm not looking for exploit data - to me that is a separate issue.

Thanks

vermaden · #2 February 21st, 2011, 20:40

The only theoretical 'threat' on BSD systems may be rootkits, there are several books about that topic, for example: Designing BSD Rootkits: An Introduction to Kernel Hacking

chavez243ca · #3 February 21st, 2011, 21:51

Thx vermaden - that's pretty much what I expected. Depending on their role and exposure the BSD systems are already running rkhunter, tripwire and are otherwise hardened.

I might see if I can get any of these security vendors to provide some solid details on the "vulnerability" of BSD to malware.

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