Last Updated on November 3, 2025 by Dave Farquhar
No OS is 100% secure if there’s enough desire to get in. There’s a web server exploit targeting Apache, Nginx, and Lighttpd running on Linux–a first of its kind, in at least one regard.
According to this page, if you execute this command:
strings /usr/bin/apache2 | egrep opentty
you’re clean if nothing comes up, and your infected if you see one or more matches. If your system stores its httpd elsewhere, change the first parameter to match.
David Farquhar is a computer security professional, entrepreneur, and author. He has written professionally about computers since 1991, so he was writing about retro computers when they were still new. He has been working in IT professionally since 1994 and has specialized in vulnerability management since 2013. He holds Security+ and CISSP certifications. Today he blogs five times a week, mostly about retro computers and retro gaming covering the time period from 1975 to 2000.