What happened to the other 8% [LWN.net]

As reported last week, Evans Data recently announced the results of a survey which indicated (among other things) that 92% of their respondents have never suffered a virus infection on their Linux systems. The mainstream press made a big deal out of this result, but, to most Linux users, the interesting result was the 8%. Linux systems can have security problems, but virus problems, in particular, are almost unheard of. An 8% infection rate seemed too high.

We dropped the folks at Evans Data a note asking for some more information. The result came back from none other than Nick Petreley, who is now the "Linux analyst" for Evans. He says:

The vast majority of Linux developers, 92%, have never experienced a virus infection on Linux. We know of no known viruses to which Linux is currently susceptible, so the tiny percentage of respondents who claim to have experienced virus infections on Linux servers may be referring to an historical incident. Although the survey question does not account for this, it is also possible that some respondents are referring to situations where they are using Linux servers to filter viruses for Windows clients. In this case, the viral infection may actually have taken place on a Windows machine because the virus checker on the Linux server failed to catch it

In other words, they don't really know either. The survey was performed over the web (a private page accessible by invitation only) and didn't really provide for detailed answers.

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