I use my personal Ubuntu desktop to do development for my professional job.
They are now asking all devs to install and run ESET.
I love using linux, but I am not a linux expert or tinkerer. I run Ubuntu LTS and don’t tweak anything and try to just stay on the simple rails. This works well for me to keep my system hassle free.
Now I am being asked to install this AV software, which I assume is invasive.
Up till now I have been running on a single Ubuntu install with my personal and work worlds just separated by separate user accounts. Now I am worried that installing ESET will give me headaches across all my user accounts.
Should I just get a new SSD to run a completely separate install of Ubuntu for work, which I can install ESET?
Also, in general, I would be interested in peoples opinions of this software.
Don’t even do that, just build a vm with virtual manager or virtualbox. That way you can keep that software isolated in a vm and you can run a share folder between the host and vm
Infosec pro here: That’s a funny request. I’d love to understand the threat model behind it:
Are you a regular employee or freelancing? Is this model of work (having workers use their own equipment for doing the company’s work) common with your company (your phrase “asking all devs” makes me think so)?
How do you interact with your company/client: Do you just email/slack with them & push your code into their Git? Or do you have a VPN connection into the company network?
I used to run Eset on my linux box, I think it was free. I had no problems and it didn’t appear to be invasive. It was hard to deinstall, though, and I doubt it did anything useful on Linux. I might be wrong but it seems to me that these rare antivirus products for Linux are designed to scan for windows viruses in emails and archives and that’s pretty much all they do. They don’t do any heuristic threat detection and won’t prevent an attack on the Linux machine. At least that’s my impression.
VM. ESET isn’t a Russian company, they’re Slavic, but they have taken some heat over the years. I wouldn’t run their software. Common sense is really all you need. But if they’re forcing it on you, spin up a VM.
It wasn’t mentioned before but I think that the company should not be able to make you install software on your personal computer, if they want to they should provide you with one
AV is invasive because in order for it function it has to look very deep into what is happening on your machine. If it is a company issued device then you should do it and do as little personal stuff on your work machine as possible. If it is bring your own device I would do all my work on a separate device or a VM. Along with being more secure it makes it easier to unplug at the end of the day since you have to physically do something to login to work stuff
Back in the day, I insisted on having bare metal Linux for work. But these days with CPU passthroughs to accelerate emulation (and faster processors in general) there’s very little penalty for working in a VM.
So… to reduce friction as much as possible, I now just work in a VM. The office can run whatever endpoint protection, virus scanner, etc. they want on the host machine. Linux dev in a VM is still faster than bare metal Windows or with WSL2 - compile times so much better, and no invasive scanners blocking code editors, compilers, etc. every time it touches the disk.
As for being asked to run something on a personal machine that you’re using for work… is this request being made to people specifically with Linux, or is this a generic request to everyone? Do they even know you’re running Linux? Did they ask you to use your personal machine (depending on country, there are laws against that if you’re salaried)?
I wouldn’t. I’d segregate something that would protect the assets they want “protected”.
Either a vm or an lxc container that’s connected to their assets and run the ESET there. I’d go with lxc/d vs using a VM that will consume a lot more resources just to run one or two things.
I am using ESET Smart Security Premium, and I have had 0 issues so far with it.
Company was founded by guys from Slovakia (I am from Slovakia too).
I am using ESET HOME to manage my license, very easy interface. I assume you would need to go business route, so ESET Business Account, but I don’t think it will be any more complicated.
Antivirus is for idiots. I’ve been running warez and banking on the same computer since Windows95 (and pirated WinME, 2k, XP).
If I send you a pic: shakiranekkid.exe and you open it; you deserve the payload.
I’ve recently encountered emails from hotmail asking me to log in with my password because of ‘suspicious activity’ after I’m logged in. - Exactly what a phisher would do. Can’t believe Microsoft is treating their users like idiots, and it was legit. One week later I get a real phishing scam in hotmail with almost the same message. Good thing it’s my 3rd email and IDGAF about it.
I’d question the authority of the admin, but that’s me.
Back in the golden era of antivirus software and Windows XP, ESET was one of the best vendors. Their antivirus didn’t consume too much resources, malware detection was quite accurate compared to others and it had some nice additional features (I remember it monitored network traffic and warned you about ongoing DOS attacks on you, don’t ask how I know).
Once Microsoft started caring about security a bit, benefits of antivirus software diminished rapidly, and ESET started focusing mostly on enterprise. After that I haven’t heard much about the company or their product, I didn’t even know they had some product for Linux. I would expect something more focused on servers than on desktop.
I don’t know about their Linux software, but the company behind it is legit (or at least was legit few years back).
I imagine it comes more down to who’s admin’ing it. We run eset here, but its more of a “Dont open that file” kind of thing. I havent noticed it being a resource hog, but basically only use my machine to remote into others.
If you’re worried, the vm spin up is going to be your best bet. (Probably safest if you think they’ll want more access in the future)
I could ask for a machinenif I wanted to, but I like using my own machine just to keep less stuff in my office. Cant use remote VM as I develope with android hardware.
I’ve ran my own personal censorship tests on Yandex (Russian search engine) and found it to be the only search engine I can trust. - Not a flat earther, anti-vaxer, alex jones nut, either.