Staog

Staog (also known as Linux / Staog ) was the first computer virus, written for the Linux operating system. It was discovered in the fall of 1996. Staog exploited three known vulnerabilities, they were closed a short time later, since the virus is no longer in the wild ( " in-the- wild" ) to find.

Staog infected Linux systems by exploiting vulnerabilities in the Linux kernel. In a Linux system, a user's access is restricted to certain areas (files, directories, peripherals ) of the system and only the administrative user root has unlimited rights (eg to delete or modify system files). The virus was able to gain by exploiting the vulnerabilities of these rights, so the virus could be "resident " set up in the system and then infect other executable files ( programs, scripts ).

However, since the distribution built on fundamental bugs that were fixed by software updates, most Linux systems are now immune to Staog. This, and the fact that he continues to spread by " shotgun method ", made ​​sure that he became extinct fairly soon.

Staog was written by the Australian cracker group VLAD in assembler.