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Windows Security Holes Go Mostly Unexploited
murky.waters writes "Wired News has an article with a decidedly different take on security holes in Microsoft Windows: Despite the thousands of known exploits and virii, most MS users aren't target of much harm, and the big guns such as Klez have had almost no effect on home users. An interesting read that, if true, challenges some common arguments."
My girlfriend's Windows 2000 machine was hacked about a month ago by script kiddies exploiting one of the recent exploits in a Microsoft product. They then installed 2 apps, a ghosting app that hides any application from the Taskbar and Tasklist, and mIRC with hacked up startup scripts to allow remote control when connected. They used the ghost app to hide itself and mIRC. Whenever she turned on her computer, it would load mIRC, hide it, then connect to EFNet. Then shortly after someone who would see it connect, would use it to mass-ping hosts in an attempt to DoS someone.
Needless to say, for the week this was going on, I noticed serious network problems at home. And pinpointed them to every time she turned on her computer, the network would lag to a stop. Finally after researching it I discovered what was going on.. I found the channel these guys hung out in, and she wasn't the only victim. They had a few hundred hacked users they could control.
So when I see reports like this, I suddenly get a whiff of steaming horse shit.
..There's a-dooin's a-transpirin'
I am then subjected to dozens of e-mail scanning auto-responders telling me I have a virus, auto replies from people I've never heard of, and the occasional jerk who thinks they know everything screaming at me in e-mail telling me I am stupid for letting myself get infected.
The fact I am also the postmaster admin to 13,000 users means I get users contacting me in a panic thinking they have a virus because one of the three above things happens to them. This, despite a faq and notices on intranet etc etc that this thing is out there.
Klez is probably the primary reason I am starting to hate Microsoft. It doesn't matter if my computer and all computers I am responsible for are completely patched and that my mail gateway blocks it, I still get to be a victim indirectly, and I doubt we'll ever see the entire planet fully patched.
Sounds like you've gotten so 0wn3zd your're not even getting the logs anymore. Probably fairly soon after those first portscans you saw. Or maybe your ISP is running a firewall for you? But if I was suddenly seeing less than a dozen attacks per day, frankly, I'd be pretty sure I wasnt seeing the real picture.