Tag Archives: rootkit detection

How to Scan Your Linux Computer for Viruses and Rootkits by https://is.gd/Mcj0vO

Are you worried that your Linux computer may be infected with malware? Have you ever checked? While Linux systems tend to be less susceptible to malware than Windows, they can still be infected. Many times they’re less obviously compromised, too.

There are a handful of excellent open-source tools to help you check if your Linux system has been the victim of malware. While no software is perfect, these three have a solid reputation and can be trusted to find most known threats.

from https://is.gd/Mcj0vO

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Spring Time! Now you are ready to protect your Ubuntu – Debian system from Rootkits and Viruses

It’s Spring Time and after a long Winter surfing the web and testing new programs, it’s time to give a short rest to your computer, delete old files and scan the OS looking for possible rootkits or viruses. I usually use Ubuntu and the possibility of viruses is not high but… why I shouldn’t double-check to avoid viruses or rootkits?

– First step: Rootkits

Open your favourite Software Manager (I am na old school boy so Synaptics it’s my choice) and install rkhunter and chkrootkit. I know, they are two different programs that have the same goals so you can decide to install and use just one of them…

After the installation you can start using them just typing into a Terminal:

sudo rkhunter --update
sudo rkhunter --check

and/or:

sudo chkrootkit

Examine all the results and don’t be disoriented by possible “”false positives”. Try to understand if some “risks” you find in the results logs could be regular software you are using (e.g. encrypted disks, etc..)

– Second Step: Viruses

Install ClamAV to scan your disks and be sure you have not infected by common viruses.

Open a Terminal and type:

sudo aptitude install clamav clamav-daemon clamav-freshclam clamtk

Then to update the ClamAV engine and the virus lists just type:

sudo apt-get upgrade clamav clamav-daemon clamav-freshclam clamtk

At this point you find ClamTk into the Accessories Menu and you are able to scan your PC just clicking on some intuitive buttons in the graphical interface.

Good Luck!  AddThis

Use chkrootkit to fight against rare (but always possible) rootkits on your Linux PCs!

This week, in our Linux Page (in Spanish), we would like to focus your attention on chkrootkit, an interesting software for Linux which can really help you to detect malicious rootkits on your Linux PC. Unfortunately, the last update we have found on the chkrootkit homepage is dated December 2007 but we hope to see a new release during the 2009. To check if you have chkrootkit already installed, type chkrootkit on you Terminal:

desktop:~$ chkrootkit

and you certainly will receive this message:
The program ‘chkrootkit’ is currently not installed.  You can install it by typing:
sudo apt-get install chkrootkit

Follow the above instructions and you will be ready to execute the software just typing:

sudo chkrootkit

Please, note that, at our first scan on Ubuntu 8.10, we found a false positive:

Checking `sniffer’… lo: not promisc and no packet sniffer sockets

eth0: PACKET SNIFFER(/sbin/dhclient3[4835])

Do not worry! This (unfortunately frequent) false positive has already been discussed by the community at

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=556517

and

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=270340

If you know other good anti-rootkits, please be so kind, to add a comment on this post. We are really interested to discover new “security software” (especially anti-rootkit) for Linux machines! AddThis mp3 link