ubuntu helps spreading windows viruses

[informiloud]

This issue has already been reported in https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/22404 but it seems nobody sees how important is this problem:
I recently found that my flash disk was infected by the ¨New Folder.exe" and ¨scvhsot.exe¨ virus although I didn't use it in any Windows computer... In fact, I was surprised to discover that all the flash disks I put in my PC (where there is a Debian Lenny system) were infected. I think the system was also slower than it used to be.
I found the problem and reproduced it on a notebook with a fresh Hardy and wine installed: when you double-click on a .exe virus, the virus is automatically run by wine and it resides silently in memory, slowing the system and infecting all the removable media it finds...
I used to tell everybody that viruses aren't a problem with GNU/Linux, but it seems it's not so true!
So now, when I install an ubuntu system for a newbie, I 'm facing the dilemma of choosing between the risk of virus infections and the inability of running the windows softwares...
The solution would be simple: to disable the default behavior of nautilus to run clamtk instead of wine when a windows executable is clicked. I tried but I didn't find an easy way to do it. Setting clamtk in the "open with..." dialog didn't work...

[steveacab (antonio.chiurazzi)]

If you don't use the windows applications you don't take virus.

the bug is resolved.

[Jan Van Buggenhout (chipzz)]

I wouldn't put it as bluntly as the previous comment, but wine becoming compatible with Windows up to a level viri run sounds like a feature to me, not a bug. Plus, the viri will most likely not affect your ubuntu installation. Your assertion that virus infections aren't a problem on Linux is correct in that sense. So this is not a bug.
I think the solution would be to install some kind of virus scanner (yes, those are available for Linux too).

[Norman Grahams (ndgrahams)]

Wine becoming compatible with Windows up to a level viruses can run is certainly a feature - by implication that Wine is running well. Wine is not designed to distinguish what kind of program it runs, but to run it as the program intends.
However I think this problem of viruses running should be addressed. Even if it isn't damaged by them, Ubuntu shouldn't carry and transmit viruses. And the potential is always there for a Wine-run virus to attack things in the user's home folder, thus becoming a Linux virus. Whether that second option is more likely than a native or cross-platform virus I don't really know, but I can imagine it being so.
Certainly the first at least has happened, and should be addressed.

I don't know how to do it, but checking files with ClamAV (the back end to the aforementioned clamtk) before opening them in Wine sounds like a very good idea. It won't slow down native operations and programs, as an antivirus program on Windows does, but it will protect against Windows viruses running under Wine.

[Norman Grahams (ndgrahams)]

I wonder whether it can be solved simply, at least as a workaround, by running ClamWin in wine - probably with its complimentary real-time scanner?

[Scott Ritchie (scottritchie)]

(optional) ClamAV integration with Wine would be an interesting feature.

[HoppingWombat (hoppingwombat)]

The problem is not with Ubuntu or Wine, but with Windows programs -- you would get the virus in them whether you were running Windows, OpenBSD, or Ubuntu.

[jan (jan-ubuntu-h-i-s)]

Just as Microsoft is advising, it should be standard practice that within Wine a virus scanner is advised for users doing a lot of wine stuff.
Has anyone tried to install virus scanners in Wine ?

[Jack Leigh (leighman)]

I also recently experienced problems with a virus via wine. Clamav integration would seem to be a much better solution than the executable-bit fiasco at the moment