5 Deadly Linux Commands That Can Destroy A System
1. Command rm -rf
It will Delete Everything Explanation It is a combination of three keywords. First is rm It will remove all the files followed by this command. Second is -rf This will run rm command in more effective way and will remove everything ( all files and folders inside the specified folder ) without asking confirmation from the user. Third is This will start removing the data from the root directory and will delete everything from the computer including the data of removable media.
2. Command (){ & };
Shell function that gets replicated. This command creates a shell function ,
which once get initialized starts to create multiple copies of itself. It results in taking quickly all the memory and power of CPU.It makes computer freeze or not responding. This is also known as Denial Of Service Attack.
3. Command mkfs.ext4 devsda1
This command will format the hard disk Explanation This command is again composed of two keywords. First is mkfs.ext4 This part of command will create a new ext4 file system on following device where this command will get executed. Second is devsda1 ;This part of command specifies the 1st partition on the first hard disk which is probably in use by the user. Similarly, This Command mkfs.ext3 devsdb2 will Format the second partition on the second hard disk with ext3 File system.
4. Command devsda
Write Any content Directly to a Hard Drive. Explanation This command will execute normally as other commands in linux do. But output of this command will directly be sent to the file system (NTFS or FAT ) of the Hard Drive. It will result into damaging the file system of the computer.
5. Command mv ~ devnull
Beware it Will Move your Home Directory To Black hole. Explanation Moving any of your content and data to following path devnull means you want to destroy it. It means devnull is a black hole where once anything sent , can not be recovered back. Note : Many of these commands will only be dangerous if they’re prefixed with sudo on Ubuntu – they won’t work
otherwise. On other Linux distributions, most commands must be run as root.
