Sunday, April 09, 2006

Virus hits both Windows and Linux systems

TechBlog reported Prolific commenter Rorschach alerts us to an equal opportunity virus that hits both Windows- and Linux-based PCs:

Viruslist is reporting on a cross platform Proof of Concept (PoC) virus that works on both Linux and Windows machines. It is claimed to be capable of infecting both the linux ELF binaries and .exe's from windows.
It is getting less and less safe out there in Cyberspace
The impact of the PoC at this point is very low in itself, but it is a sign the cross platform aspects are becoming important. As the developers of viruses continue to research this, we will see (more) cross platform malware come about in the future.
Although this rudimentary virus doesn't do much harm, nastier versions are likely to follow. ComputerWorld reports this is not the first time a cross-platform virus has been spotted in the wild:

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