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Does installing wine pose a risk of virus infection? I'm afraid a powerful virus can bypass wine sandbox and gain access to root linux.

Thank you.

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You can execute native executables inside wine, so if the virus knows what to do with a native executable, and if you have write access to the executable, then it is possible.

Wine is not a sandbox, it is a compatibility layer. There is nothing preventing code from crossing back and forth other than a lack of programmers with the knowledge and desire.

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+1 for 'Wine is not a sandbox', it does make a POSIX system compatible with win32 apps, including viruses – Javier Apr 21 '10 at 12:02
Check this out: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=72598. This guy installed some viruses and then posted what happened. That was way back in 2005, when Wine was nowhere near as good at running applications as it is today. I would suggest you assume Linux / UNIX with WINE is no more secure against viruses than Windows. – Richard Holloway Apr 21 '10 at 16:04
“Wine is not a sandbox” is spot on. – Mo. Apr 21 '10 at 16:16

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