Virus watchers have reported the rare sighting of a new strain affecting the Linux platform.

The Jac virus follows the recent trend of infrequent Linux infecting malware, as the first to hit the platform in three months.

Jac infects the Linux binary files in the Linux Executable and Linking Format that exist in the same directory as the virus.

When the virus is executed, it checks all files in the same directory as the one from which it originated. If it finds executable files that have write permission, it attempts to infect them.

Jac will not infect files that end with the letters 'ps', nor will it infect files that were not created for the Intel x86 platform.

It modifies several fields in the header of the file and leaves an infection marker which prevents the virus from infecting a file multiple times.

Linux users typically crow about how much more secure it is than the Windows platform, but this time they may be justified as Jac has only been branded as a low threat. It is not expected to spread in the wild and causes little damage.