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Anti-virus on Linux Mint?

Every Windows user knows that anti-virus software is essential.  We know that because marketing people tell us, so it must be true.

Even if it's a blatant money-making falsehood, no-body really wants to take the risk that a Windows machine might be easy to compromise.  So all Windows users deploy some sort of anti-virus software on their machines.

For Linux, the game seems different.  One opinion is from the Easy Linux Tips Project ("ELTP").  ELTP is quite hardcore about a security approach, but the key takeaway from the opinion is section 1.1 (Antivirus software and rootkit removers).  Anti-virus software decreases security on Linux Mint because the elevated permissions requires to do its job are the target of a vector attack, i.e. compromise the anti-virus software, then compromise the whole computer.

A consequence of this is that the use of Mono or Wine - translation layers that enable Windows applications to run on Linux Mint - are thus also effective attack vectors, because they enable Linux Mint to run malware written for Windows (crudely) - section 5.

Zoiks.

So, as ELTP suggests, in the primary admin account:

  • sudo ufw enable
  • sudo passwd
This was completed in Mar2018.  Upon re-test in Apr2018, the firewall was still up, so this setting looks like it survives re-boots/shut-downs.

Why did Linux Mint see fit to disable the firewall by default?

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