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Precautions prevent attacks | |
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| Time: 02:41 EST/07:41 GMT | News Source: Washington Post | Posted By: Robert Stein | ||
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Keeping a Windows PC safe can demand a high degree of vigilance — imagine if cars needed the same constant care and feeding. And yet all these attacks by viruses, worms, spyware and browser hijackers could have been prevented with some initial effort. It's completely feasible to put a computer on the Internet — even one running Windows, the most-attacked, least-secure operating system around — and never suffer a single successful attack. | ||
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| #1 By 2960 (156.80.64.203) at 1/4/2005 8:47:51 AM |
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Sure it is. For 4 minutes.
That's the life-span of an XP-SP1 based computer put on the Internet without a Firewall before it is compromised. Yes, I know the necessary precautions are not taken in this example. But we have to remember, the average computer user/buyer see's a computer as an appliance and not something that requires constant attention due to poor security design. They take it out of the box and plug it in. That's what the commercials say, right? TL |
| #2 By 6859 (206.156.242.39) at 1/4/2005 9:06:59 AM |
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Gotta love the FUD here. Windows, according to the DoD, when properly configured, is more secure than Unix, Linux, MacOS, and all the rest. If a person (or persons) know what they're doing Windows can be unbreakable.
Plus even Linux zealots aren't so stupid to put their product unprotected on the Internet: use a firewall or NAT (ideally both.) Plus, the computers to car anaolgy is severely broken, no respectable person would even attempt to use it as a method of comparison. His "step 5" (dl firefox) is nothing more than an attempt to lull the user into a false sense of security. Sure, because Firefox is relatively new it hasn't had the barrage of vulnerabilities that IE, through plain use for the past few years, has had. But how long can that hold up? It won't. Nothing is perfect, FF is no exception. Soon there will be new drive-by attacks on it that will make people wonder ... then since it will be ingrained into the culture of the anti-IE crowd, it will be too late. One thing the guy never mentions is simple: never run as Administrator or as a user with administrative rights while on the Internet. Make a normal User, they have far less access to the core of the OS. This is something the Linux crowd gets right (mostly, there are a few dopes out there, but that's gonna happen.) And if you need to burn a CD/DVD as that user, you can use the trusty "Run As" to accomplish pretty much the same thing as "su" or "sudo". I'm amazed the author didn't mention it....no, wait, I'm not amazed, I should have expected such from a moron. He also fails to mention that DirectX is a major path to patch as well, but that's being nitpicky. |
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