Does Fedora user needs an antivirus?

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I found it mentioned that antivirus exists for linux like clamtk and KlamAV while many inform that linux is secure I see that an approximate because I found who mentioned the installation of malware on server like spam distribution…

  1. What is your experience with antivirus ?
  2. Do you recommend a specific project as antivirus ?
  3. What strategy you recommend to keep fedora safe ?
  4. How to make a live monitoring for dangerous ins or outs traffics ?
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There are indeed anti-virus tools available for Fedora, and the one I have used is clamav. In most usage Fedora and Linux based systems are safe from attack, however not impervious. Email programs are one example of potential attack methods that are commonly exploited with malware. In such a case if the malware was targeting Linux systems, then having a mail scanning anti-virus package installed would prove prudent. Having said that, I have never found an infected file on my system in any variant of Fedora I have ran ever since the beginning of Fedora.

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@jakfrost, what do you suggest for the 4th point ?

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In a point of view a user I’ve never use and Antivirus since I start using Fedora 14 and I don’t found any problem at all during this years, most user use antivirus to find out windows virus that come accros into his/her e-mail box

Talking about why linux is so secure?, development in linux the program or project flow for different phases from programming … packing … releasing … etc → too many eyes on it.

Talking about Hardering, you can have action to prevent:

  • Disk encryption
  • Keep always the system up to date
  • Disable un-neccesasry service like ftp, etc
  • Check Open Ports, don’t expose your box outside
  • Don’t disable SElinux
  • Don’t execute Script that you don’t know the procedence
  • if you use ssh change the default port for something else
  • Enable firewall
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I honestly wouldn’t know. I use my computers to program industrial automation mostly, that’s what puts food on the table and a roof over the head for me. My exposure to calmav anti-virus software on Fedora was merely for curiosity sake instead of need.

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Agreed, I haven’t ever ran into actually needing an anti-virus on Fedora. I used it due to curiosity.

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Now you’re entering in Admin Job’s, you have a toons of tools for port scanning:

  • Port Scanner:
    ** wireshark
    ** nmap
  • Intruction detection
    ** snort
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Maybe you mean intrusions detection

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I would like to add masscan to Port scanners

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A few tasks for to todo list:

  1. Think that by running bad cmd like below can destroy your system

sudo rm -rf /*

  1. Scan downloads or if you are bringing a file from another computer on a USB drive or sharing files with windows system.
  2. Reguarly run some log scanning to detect unusual activities
  3. Keep your passwords strong
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Usually no antivirus is required on Linux.

But if your Fedora/Linux computer is SSH-accessible and directly connected to the Internet, I’d recommend you to install and keep running denyhosts.

Deny Hosts will monitor your SSH port and blocks IPs that fail to login more than 3 times in row as they follow a brute force attack pattern. This is absolutely essential for any server.