A new Windows exploit; potentially very nasty
- Thread starter mandimoron
- Start date
Both OS have their pros and cons. Macs=better graphics+processor speed (1.4 ghz in a mac=2.8 ghz in a windows PC), and windows has far more software available for it.
As to the security threat, I heard about that months ago. It does sound nasty, but if you have 3 virus checkers, 2 spyware blockers/removers, 2 firewalls, and an encrypted connection like I do, its not that bad of a threat. Just be carefull.
As to the security threat, I heard about that months ago. It does sound nasty, but if you have 3 virus checkers, 2 spyware blockers/removers, 2 firewalls, and an encrypted connection like I do, its not that bad of a threat. Just be carefull.
Not quite. There have been many "Windows vs Linux" comparisons which "prove" Windows is more secure given the numbers of reported exploits in a given timeframe, how fast they are resolved (IF they are resolvedd), and so on. The problem with using raw numbers like that is the numbers don't describe the kinds of exploits they represent.Teelie said:
For example, there might have been 100 exploits found in Fedora Core 3 Linux in 2004 and only 75 Windows exploits found in that same year. (I'm making up numbers, obviously). Based on that, and maybe the fact that Microsoft got say 60 of those exploits fixed in a resonable amount of time while the Fedora maintainers got 50 of theirs fixed, one could conclude Windows is more secure since Microsoft is fixing problems faster, they are fixing more problems, and fewer problems were reported in the given timeframe.
What those phantom numbers don't mention are the vast majority of the Fedora Core exploits require local (console) access to the machine and aren't "network oriented exploits" as the majority of the Windows exploits are, meaning stuff isn't infecting the machine by virtue of being connected to a network, be it the Internet or another network, or by virtue of accessing websites or whatever.
Second, those numbers don't distinguish between Linux specific problems (like problems with the kernel) and problems with apps that come with Linux distributions (problems with Apache or bind (DNS) are not Linux specific problems but Apache and bind problems).
If Linux was as prevalent as Windows is, I'm definitely certain more people would attack it more than they do now and problems and holes would be found BUT I don't think it would be nearly as bad as what Windows users have had to deal with the past few years.
I was actually surprised to read about this exploit since I would imagine, by now, Windows would be more robust than it's track record has indicated but maybe the fact that we're hearing less and less about exploits proves that Microsoft is doing a better job of plugging the holes.
The "security through obscurity" argument is violated by Apache, which dominates the web server market (it owns 75% or so with IIS (Microsoft) in distant second). I believe IIS was being exploited far more than Apache at some point but I can't comment on how things stand now. The point being, if it were a sheer numbers issue then Apache should be attacked far more than IIS and holes found in far greater numbers.
In any event, I heard a story about a someone who offered a cash "reward" for any hacker who could come up with an Internet-born Mac OS X virus that would infect a Mac in the similar fashion Windows can be infected and the outcry from the Mac community thwarted that. I think it would have been an interesting experiment but that's just me.
With having said all of that, it all comes down to protecting your computer and making sure you have good software in place and updated to protect you as much as you can be protected and simply not assume you're immune to the various bugs floating around.
Peace...
One of the easiest ways to protect your computer is to create an account with very few privileges, like use a guest account on XP. You don't need to be an administrator to read mail, surf the web or use instant messaging.
reiverix said:
Actually if those are the only things you do i'd get a bootable version of linux (i use knoppix) and its all good.
Too bad so many people are still "afraid" of trying it...
You know, I tried this one a friend's machine. She got a new Dell with XP Home pre-installed and she needed to have another person use the machine to do accounting work. QuickBooks or maybe Quicken (I forget) was the app being used and I defined the accountant as a regular, non-admin user. I could login ok but the accounting app refused to run without admin privileges. The accounting app was installed on the primary account which is an admin account but the icons for it appeared on the desktop for the other, non-admin account.reiverix said:
I wasn't familiar enough with the accounting app to modify the configuration if that would have been needed but I was surprised that I ran into that problem, in the first place. Bizarre indeed.
Still, your point is definitely a valid one and I fairly recently learned that the Ubuntu distribution of Linux has taken a different approach to this. The password for the "root" (super user, administrator in XP parlance) account isn't known to the user so they can't login as "root". They can can super user access to perform administrative tasks through the GUI but once the task is completed, they super user access is terminated. This isn't bulletproof but for the "typical" user who won't try to hack their system it takes a bold step forward if preventing them from shooting themselves in the foot.
Yep, I know exactly what you mean. That's one thing I like about AVG, it will update itself and run daily scans all on its own. I've installed ZoneAlarm on a number of machines and when ZoneAlarm informs them of updates, they download the updates and think the firewall has been updated by virtue of doing the download.OrionGirl said:
Hopefully, software like this (anti-spyware, anti-virus, firewalls, etc) will require less and less user intervention since people just want to use their computers without having to worry about this stuff or they just don't know it's their responsibility to keep their systems maintained.
Oh well. I guess this is akin to those who think once they install a UGF they are "done".
Peace...
I do this often as my "litmus test" of how practical Linux is today. The idea is to "point" Linux at a random system and see how it "reacts". I've had interesting results with some systems being fully functional and others not having network access due to an unsupported network card or something.Hannys_Papa said:Actually if those are the only things you do i'd get a bootable version of linux (i use knoppix) and its all good.
Too bad so many people are still "afraid" of trying it...
One time I was rebuilding a Dell that crashed (someone turned off the machine without shutting down and that trashed Windows XP Home Edition) and the owner didn't have the Dell recovery CD so she bought (at my instruction) a XP Home Edition off the shelf. Since it was a vanilla XP, none of the Dell drivers were installed so I had VGA graphics, no network access, etc. I booted my Ubuntu LiveCD on the same box and it had drivers for everything such that I could download the drivers I needed from the Dell website and save them to a ZIP disc in a USB ZIP drive I happend to have with me. When I booted XP again, XP supported the USB ports AND the USB ZIP drive so I could get the drivers installed that way.
Linux LiveCDs can be cool but they can run slowly enough to be frustrating.
Peace...
