Kaspersky: Virus Removal Tool for Linux provides first assessment
Kaspersky has released a virus removal tool for Linux. It provides an initial assessment of known malware infections on demand.
(Image: Erstellt mit Midjourney von heise online)
Kaspersky has released the Virus Removal Tool for Linux (KVRT), a pure on-demand virus scanner that can provide IT managers with a quick (additional) opinion on the malware infestation status of a Linux system. The mini virus scanner works without installation on various Linux distributions.
The concept of an additional, purely on-demand scanner is anything but new. The predecessor of the Microsoft Defender called Malicious Software Removal Tool (MSRT) is probably still remembered by many: Since the beginning of 2005, Microsoft had updated it as part of the monthly patchday – with detections for the malware families relevant at the time – and ran it on many hundreds of millions of computers. Other manufacturers also offered such on-demand scanners, such as Trend Micro with the predecessor of the online scanner Housecall or McAfee with Stinger, although McAfee had secretly installed a background guard at some point.
On-demand scanner for Linux
Kaspersky is now implementing the concept with the KVRT under Linux. Linux systems, like Windows devices, are under "constant attack" and many malware families can nest and spread in the open source operating system. The software can be started directly after downloading the kvrt.run file, which is currently 171 MB in size, once it has been marked as executable. This can be done from the command line by calling chmod +x kvrt.run in the download directory. The app requires root rights, which is why the root password is usually required at startup.
An online help page from Kaspersky explains how to use the software, which can be run on systems with at least one GB of free disk space, Intel CPU architecture, one GB of RAM and an active Internet connection. The company has tested the program on various distributions, such as AlmaLinux, CentOS, Debian, Linux Mint, openSUSE Leap, Oracle Linux, Red Hat, SLES and Ubuntu, to name just the most widely used. However, it should also be able to run on various other distributions, so all you need to do is try it out.
The software scans the system for known malware and offers to remove it if found; a restart may then be necessary. It cannot request updates itself. If you want to use the latest signatures, you will have to download the app from Kaspersky's website again if necessary.
(Image: Screenshot / dmk)
Such on-demand scanners are useful for getting a quick initial overview of whether a system is infected with malware. Other one-shot tools such as chkrootkit or rkhunter can also help to assess the status of a Linux system - at least whether previously known malware is active on it. As fewer and fewer manufacturers offer virus scanners that run under Linux, a newly available scanner is certainly welcome to many.
(dmk)
