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Clean System to Zombie Bot in Four Minutes
Amadaeus writes "According to the latest study by USA Today and Avantgarde, it takes less than 4 minutes for an unpatched Windows XP SP1 system to become part of a botnet. Avantgarde has the statistics in their abstract. Stats of note: Although Macs and PC's got hit with equal opportunity, the XP SP1 machine was hit with 5 LSASS and 4 DCOM exploits while the Mac remained clean. The Linux desktop also was impenetrable, but only was only targeted by 0.26% of all attacks." See also our story on the survival time for unpatched systems.
So this is why my new Dell tried to eat my brain this morning!
First Post from a Bot!
this is news?
...
Next up: People who see a dollar bill on the sidewalk will pick it up and put it in their pocket. See our analysis
from the takes-five-minutes-to-download-patches dept
Yeah right...
[n8.r0n] http://petesweb.spymac.net/
I'm using my new unpatched XP system right now and it works gre45h3@#$!dd11f
NO CARRIER
Bah, that's a load -BUYVIAGRANOW2FOR1!- of BS. I haven't patched my PC since I bought it -FREEMORTGAGEQUOTES!- and it's running just -TIREDOFCONSOLIDATEDDEBT?- fine. No viruses, no trojans, -TIREDOFSPAM?BUYTHISCRAP!- nothing.
"As long as you don't download crap off the internet or don't do port forwarding to an internal server, your NAPT router is a good defense."
Which is why I was curious about its effectiveness for the typical user. I use Firefox, lock down the machine, don't install crap, and that machine is perfectly clean a year after its OS install.
My wife's machine, however, is the opposite. AdAware choked because there were thousands of items (of course each piece of spyware has hundreds of items, so AdAware's list is misleading) and some that tried to prevent AdAware from running. I gave her a good talking to about installing crap from msn.com and visiting porn sites using IE. So I wound up sacrificing sex for a week so I would get a break from cleaning her computer. Sigh. Women.
Anyway, my point is that I am not the typical user. NAT is an effective tool, but like any tool, it is only as good as the person wielding it.
24 beers in a case, 24 hours in a day. Coincidence? I think not!
That's just the sort of thing a Zombie Bot would say!
Yeah, I don't know how many times I've said it, "Honey, if you MUST cruise sublimedirectory.com do it with Firefox!"
Okay, ZERO!
But how I wish she would....(sigh)
guess you better learn to type faster, huh.
12:50 - press return.
Boot knoppix...
Guess what, there's millions of Windows users out there who don't know what an "SP2" is, or why they should care about it, or have a clue how to download such a behemoth over their 28.8 AOL dialup.
Come to the University of Mars! Classes starting soon!
a) I don't know many women that visit porn sites on the internet. I know women that love vibrators and stuff like that, but porn usually isn't their thing.
b) Make it clear to your wife that you're the one managing the machines and that she has to submit to your will on the issue (she probably will even say "I don't understand much of computers"). It's very simple in my household: you use Firefox, don't touch IE and you're behind my OpenBSD firewall using the DSL connection I pay. You follow the rules or your computer will stop functioning because I say so. Girlfriend (not wife) wisely submitted to my will. Total spyware count on her XP box: 0.
c) sacrificing sex for a week so I would get a break from cleaning her computer
As a nerd, you should be able to keep years without sex. That's why you've got a right/left hand. My Girlfriend threathens with no sex and I'll laugh in her face saying "I've had no sex for 27 years... I can wait till you're horny and can't wait no more".
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
Talk her into a Mac, if you can.
I can't believe I said that. This is in no way any attempt to encourage creating a bonsai person, even a voluntary one.
What I say does not represent the views of my employers, my friends, my cats, or myself.