The 12-minute Windows heist

Anonymous Patron writes “Scary! There is a 50 percent chance your unprotected Windows PC will be compromised within 12 minutes of going online, says security vendor Sophos. Highlighting the increasing speed of online attacks in research covering the last six months of virus activity, the vendor said the news was mostly grim.

VIA /.“

July 1, 2005 by Uncategorized 4

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4 Responses

  1. Walt says:
    July 1, 2005 at 11:56 pm

    Only 50%?
    I would have guessed higher. A computer with no firewall and no antivirus protection (regardless of OS) is just sitting there saying “Take me! Make me a zombie!” and there are too many sociopaths ready to oblige.

    For that matter, despite the soothing comments of our local paper’s computer columnist, I believe that it makes sense to run a software firewall even when you’re connected to broadband via a router with hardware firewall…not to be paranoid, but…well, yes, to be suitably paranoid.

    Reply
  2. Cyberpunk Librarian says:
    July 2, 2005 at 12:24 am

    Re:Only 50%?

    …not to be paranoid, but…well, yes, to be suitably paranoid.

    Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get you. As long as Microsoft goes for the “secuity through ingorance” style of protection, Windows will always be an insecure system. Thing is, there is no security through ignorance. How long does it take from the time someone finds a hole in Windows security to the time it’s posted on a forum somewhere?

    Companies really need to start realizing that people don’t like them, even though we may buy their stuff. Consumers are turned off by the “black box” theory of ownership. I can own my Playstation 2 or my iPod or whatever, but thanks to certain provisions of the DMCA it’s illegal for me to open it up, see how it works, and maybe make it better. I’d be especially stupid to do so and then post my findings. But people do, usually pseudonymously or anonymously.

    So it goes with Windows and computing and everything else. People don’t want DRM so they crack it. DVD Jon took less than 24 hours to crack Google’s new video DRM scheme. Then he posted how to do so on his blog. People do the same thing with Windows. They keep firing at it, and wherever a hole appears it’s duly noted and posted. Perhaps if Microsoft actually spent time breaking into their own OS and then sending out patches before someone else finds the hole, we’d be far better off. But they don’t. They leave it instead to people who hate them, people who look for weakness, people who will exploit that weakness to give MS a bad name.

    Reply
  3. Anonymous Patron says:
    July 2, 2005 at 3:17 am

    Re:Wasn’t a crack or even a DRM scheme
    From Boing Boing link:

    The PC Magazine author didn’t quite put this into the proper perspective. In fact, this is by far the simplest “crack” yet for DVD Jon. The source code to VLC (the basis for the Google video player) is already available online and Google had published their changes to it on code.google.com (Link). All that has to be done to remove the “feature” in question is to search for “video.google.com” and delete the block of code that surrounds it.

    More interesting is the discovery of all the copyrighted video that’s been uploaded to the service.

    Some specifics here.

    Reply
  4. drogheda says:
    July 2, 2005 at 5:02 am

    Re:Only 50%?

    I apologize if I’m fanning the OS war flames, but I would quibble with “regardless of OS”. My logs show plenty of attacks being aimed against my personal network, but even without my firewalls, they wouldn’t work: they’re all Windows exploits and I run Mac OS X. I also have current antivirus software running, but in *years* it has yet to locate malware on any of my machines.

    The same can not be said for our (dumpster dived and renovated) test tower running Windoze (XP currently, but it’s gone through several flavors). And my partner and I regularly have to rescue friends’ Windows machines from the spyware/adware menace. It makes me wonder how any novice home user can enjoy being online.

    I don’t do the security for our Linux machines so unfortunately can’t give you a comparison.

    NB. Am I biased? Yup; for a reason. I’ve done rather a lot of tech support for both Mac and Windows machines and have used Microsoft’s contributions in the workplace for the last decade. My observations of my personal network are IME accurate for business and educational networks as well. However, I am not saying that Mac OS X has uncompromisable security! Whatever system you run, you should have at least one firewall and the latest antivirus updates.

    Reply

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