Holy Freak'n Viruses

Joined
Sep 2, 2005
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I was streaming music from a local radio station and kept noticing some interference so decided to scan the computer for viruses. I am running Ubuntu with Firefox and use the Clam TK scanner. Anyway...... it found 153 threats. I thought Ubuntu was some - what safe from viruses.
 
I’ll be following this also as I have an Ubuntu system that has been flawless for a dozen or more years.
 
Please share; we used command line mcafee and occasionally found viruses on linux; they were embedded into MS files that were sitting on samba drives. So windows viruses on a linux system....

Very unlikely trojans had infected your linux machine. What version Ubuntu? Do you patch it? What directories did you actually scan?
 
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Very unlikely trojans had infected your linux machine. What version Ubuntu? Do you patch it?
Clam TK says there Trojans. The last 2 times I went on Facebook I got them. I'm running version 14.04. I dont patch it. Whatever that means. lol
 
Clam TK says there Trojans. The last 2 times I went on Facebook I got them. I'm running version 14.04. I dont patch it. Whatever that means. lol
No no no no no, man. 14.04 has been unsupported since April 2019 and the Firefox version will be severely out-of-date as well. For heaven's sake, it might be time to update it to AT LEAST 16.04, which will remain supported until April of this year. 14.04 *is not safe* for internet use.

*Are you not prompted from time to time to install updates*?!

At this point, with an unpatched operating system that would be out-of-date even relative to a patched 14.04 install; and owing to the fact that you'll have to update to 16.04, then 18.04 almost immediately, I strongly suggest thinking about a fresh install of 20.04.

With that said, I'd bet that all of the trojans found are Windows viruses. I'd also bet that your Firefox installation is a wide-open opportunity for ne'er-do-wells to exploit for things like Bitcoin mining and other activities that'd drain your resources. It is almost mandatory to run some type of ad- or script-blocking add-on for your browser these days.
 
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Good. I hate to see people putting faith in systems that are unsafe for "daily driver" use.

For future reference, Ubuntu LTS (Long Term Support) versions are released in April of even-numbered years (hence 14.04, released in 2014 in the 4th month, 16.04 in April 2016, etc.) and are supported for 5 years (so 16.04 will lose support in April of this year, 2021). So it's ok to skip one LTS version if necessary but it is much, much more common practice just to set the system to alert you when there is a new LTS version (which'll happen every two years) and allow it up upgrade your system. That way you know and can plan for a ~30 minute upgrade and reboot in April or May of even-numbered years. And it is also extremely advisable to have the system check daily, weekly or every other week for security updates and install them automatically.

If you want, PM me and I can walk you through setting up the system for these automatic updates and alerts for new LTS versions.
 
My guess is the questionable files are just in your home area; those aren't trojans as they are not in any of the system areas or they are windows files.

That being said, I hesitate to suggest installing a new version until you actually understand what is being reported with the version you have, primarily because you have clearly stated that you believe the system is compromised but only because a tool you have installed says so.
 
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