Tuxissa

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Tuxissa is a fictional computer virus made up by Humorix, a humor website on Linux.^[1]

Although the website states that all articles there are fake,^[2]

anti-virus software makers such as Symantec and Sophos had pages for the Tuxissa hoax.

1 How it works (in theory)
2 See also
3 Footnotes
4 External links

[edit] How it works (in theory)

The virus is based on the Melissa virus, with its aim to install Linux onto the victim's computer without the owner's notice. It is spread via e-mail, contained within a message titled "Important Message About Windows Security". It first spreads the virus to other computers, then it downloads a stripped-down version of Slackware, and uncompresses it onto the hard disk. The Windows Registry is finally deleted, and the boot options changed. There the virus destroys itself when it reboots the computer at the end, with the user facing the Linux login prompt.