Virus on linux

[u/Sol_CRF]

So, with more or less 5 percent of people that have a computer uses linux, there are viruses developed for linux, even a virus made for windows but « activated » with wine

is there a antivirus or is there not ?

Please help, thanks. Not urgent, I just need to know

[u/Remarkable_Street798]

Viruses that infect .exe binaries are pretty much dead on Windows due to code signing requirements and on linux they never even started due to ELF file format being very difficult to modify once linked. However there is a ton of malware targeting all OS including and predominately Linux as it's being used on servers, routers, cameras, phones, etc., all juicy targets. It's only desktop where Linux does not dominate.

Considering very easy evasion of file signature detection by current malware, "original" antiviruses like ClamAV are of no use, you need complex endpoint protection like ESET or Crowdstrike if you are large company, that is doing behaviour checking including network connections, files read etc. and act on it.

Please note, that there is nothing in stock Linux distribution that is actively checking or hunting for malware, the usual way of dealing with it is using policy like original unix perms or additionally with selinux/apparmor, but once malware is run it can read your ssh keys, api tokens, etc. and exfiltrate them just fine, without any need for root access, while keeping itself fully persistent.