Do I need antivirus software for linux?

To be frank there is no serious viruses found so far for Linux. The main reason is Linux is quite secure as compare to Windows. Also, viruses cannot cause any serious damage if they are not activated by root user (that is why you need to use su or sudo command and always login as normal user). However if you are using any one of the following program then consider getting a good virus scanner:

Windows via Samba
Linux Email server
Linux as a router etc

Most are windows virus that, may affects above program.

Posted by: Vivek Gite

The author is the creator of nixCraft and a seasoned sysadmin, DevOps engineer, and a trainer for the Linux operating system/Unix shell scripting. Get the latest tutorials on SysAdmin, Linux/Unix and open source topics via RSS/XML feed or weekly email newsletter.

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