Malware on guest System - How does it affect the linked clone

[panther202]

Will the linked clone also become infected? Or can I clone the linked clone, delete the original and the malware is gone?
What about the other way around ?(Malware on linked clone -> will the original also get infected?)

[mpack]

If the linked clone was created before the infection then it will not be affected. If created after then you need to cleanse both VMs. And btw, neither VM is really "the original". Both are offspring of the true original.

A linked clone consists of a base VDI and then each VM has a difference VDI to contain all changes relative to the base. That means that changes to each VM is independant, neither can write to the base layer nor affect each other.

And btw, this inter-dependence is a house of cards. It will crash and burn eventually IMO.