Slashdot Mirror
Stop Christmas-Gift PCs From Feeding Worms
An Anonymous Reader writes "If you recently set up a new PC with Windows XP,
or if you had the pleasure to do a 'reinstall from scratch,' you probably found that many XP systems as they are shipped today are not patched against common issues like Blaster. Given that these worms are still going strong, it doesn't take long for a new system to be infected. In particular, if you have to connect it to the Internet to download all the patches.
Well, help is in sight. The SANS Institute released a paper entitled Windows XP: Surviving the First Day." (Read on below.) Update: 12/24 17:59 GMT by T : Thanks for reader Bill Curnow for the updated link. Update: 12/24 19:15 GMT by T : Besides the workaround suggested below, Roblimo has a good suggestion on avoiding the first-day-of-Windows altogether.
"With many screen shots, it will walk you through the procedure to enable the XP firewall and downloading the patches without getting infected while doing so. This could be the (free) stocking stuffer that may save Christmas for your folks ;-). Given that its probably to late now to start downloading your favorite Linux distro."
But if you do have the time and bandwidth, and you're stuck on Windows, a nice live-CD distro like Knoppix or Mepis means you can download patches without racing the worms, and install your patches while offline. (And if you have time to download 50MB, you have time to grab Damn Small Linux.)
Check those links, people.
Click Start > Network and Dial up connections
Right click on your internet connection, choose "Properties"
Click "Advanced"
Click the box to turn on the firewall
Voila. You are safe from Blaster.
As an added precaution, deselect "Client for Microsoft Networks" from all interfaces except any you really need it on.
Try this instead.
http://www.sans.org/rr/papers/index.php?id=1298
There's been a lot of "Slashdot posts ever anti-Windows article that exists", but this article debunks that.
I usually recommend a hardware firewall, in particular the little blue Linksys firewalls. Home users can hook up their ADSL connection, plug in the firewall, and then their PC. Then as long as they don't download email until their system is patched and anti-virus is updated, they're relatively safe from most malware.
This year I've also begun recommending anti-spyware as well. It's amazing how ubiquitous that stuff's become over the past year.
Ruby on Rails Screencast
I figure if you're reading this on slashdot you don't need screenshots to find your way around a monitor...
Obviously, this should be done before you plug the machine into any kind of internet connection.
-Go to Start and then Control Panel.
-Once in Control Panel, choose Network Connections
-Right click on your connection of choice (if there's more than one, do it for all of them) and choose Properties.
-Go to the advanced tab and check the Firewall check box.
If you want to know more about how to configure it and modify the settings, click the link below that checkbox for directions.
-
The main problem with standard XP is the stupid requirement to phone home to register before downloading the patches to make it safe to be on the net in the first place.
That's FUD. XP gives you 60 days to activate your copy of windows. During those 60 days, Windows is fully functional and allows you to connect without any activation related troubles.
you won't get any spyware or data-mining cookies sneaked onto your computer
What, you're saying that not a single Linux web browser supports cookies? A "data-mining" cookie is just a cookie to track you as you browse the web - one set by an advertising site such as doubleclick. They work just as well whatever OS you're running.
6. Use your new shiny computer as you're pleased
Well, y'see, it pleases me to run games like Dungeon Siege, Postal 2, Warcraft 3, and a whole host of others that don't have native Linux versions (don't mention Wine, please). It also pleases me to write code in C# (again, forget mono, it's not nearly there yet). Until Linux provides me the means to do these things, it'll always be my secondary OS, Windows will be my primary, and "advice" to secure my PC by wiping Windows and installing Linux will be treated with the contempt that it deserves.
However, none of those bugs/holes will expose your PC to worms such as Blaster
You are of course aware that the first internet-borne worm utilised a buffer overflow in sendmail to infect computers? Don't go getting over-confident - true, I can't think of any Linux-targetting worms at the moment, but it's been done before, and it will be done again.
It's official. Most of you are morons.