# FreeBSD + Malware



## chavez243ca (Feb 21, 2011)

Does anybody have any information, preferably with / incl. verifiable reference material, with regard to the incidence/prevalence of malware that targets the BSD operating system.  Esp. any figures to show "in-the-wild" numbers.

The corp I work for has been reviewing our growing number of BSD boxen and is asking questions about anti-virus.  From what I see, most implementations of AV on unix-like OSes is mainly to prevent the spread of Windows malware.  The security vendors, of course, are courting management with the "no OS is safe" line.  I agree to some extent - but our BSD systems are almost entirely server setups - no X11, no browsers, no linux compat, no Java runtime etc.

Most documentation I've reviewed (NIST, SANS, CIS etc.) rarely mentions antivirus and *nix.

FWIW - I'm not looking for exploit data - to me that is a separate issue.

Thanks


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## vermaden (Feb 21, 2011)

The only theoretical 'threat' on BSD systems may be rootkits, there are several books about that topic, for example: Designing BSD Rootkits: An Introduction to Kernel Hacking


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## chavez243ca (Feb 21, 2011)

Thx vermaden - that's pretty much what I expected.  Depending on their role and exposure the BSD systems are already running rkhunter, tripwire and are otherwise hardened.

I might see if I can get any of these security vendors to provide some solid details on the "vulnerability" of BSD to malware.


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