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My roommate's company was recently hit by a comprehensive Ransomware attack and she has been working from home via our home network. All the other computers in our house other than her work machine are Linux-based, but I am unclear as to how the malicious software propagates. Am I at risk of having MY system compromised because I've been using the same router? Will Ransomware that targets a PC be able to also infect and target a Linux OS machine? I don't believe we've shared any USB disks or that such "transmission" recently, though perhaps we have.

Any and all help and suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Apologies if this question seems basic but I did a fair bit of searching for answers to this specific issue and found a lot about "Linux is vulnerable" and of course on PCs that were infected, but not on the vectors of transmission.

Lastly, am I able to use any Linux tools to determine if there's been an infection?

Thank you in advance for any help.

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  • The answer is we don't know... Is it possible? Yes. But it is highly unlikely... About as likely as winning the lottery or being struck by lightning while being bitten by a shark. Attacks like this are purpose built, so although it is possible that it could infect a Linux PC, chances are good it cannot. Without specific details on the attack vector, it is impossible to say with 100% certainty.
    – acejavelin
    Commented Jul 15, 2021 at 2:19
  • Yes; WannaCry was ransomware that would infect any vulnerable device on the network it could communicate with and encrypt any that drive accessible by that machine.
    – Ramhound
    Commented Jul 15, 2021 at 2:33
  • Thank you, yes, I understand that it's "possible" but I meant more about likelihood. My understanding is that (generally) a virus that infects a PC isn't going to infect a Linux machine but as these things get more sophisticated...who knows. All I know is that the attack was via a cloud connection. Not sure beyond that. Thank you for the reply.
    – confused
    Commented Jul 15, 2021 at 2:34
  • @Ramhound Thank you for this info. I just looked up WannaCry and it appears to have only worked on Windows machines...not Linux OS. This is a bit of a relief.
    – confused
    Commented Jul 15, 2021 at 2:35
  • MacOS and Linux have had their own share of infections that could spread by themselves (worms). WannaCry is just a single example that exists.
    – Ramhound
    Commented Jul 15, 2021 at 2:39

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