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New Malware Report Hits Vista's Security Image
An anonymous reader recommends a Computerworld article on a new report from Australian security vendor PC Tools. The company released figures on malware detection by its ThreatFire product, and in its user base 27% of Vista machines were compromised by at least one instance of malware. From the article: "In total, Vista suffered 121,380 instances of malware from its 190,000 user base, a rate of malware detection per system [that] is proportionally lower than that of XP, which saw 1,319,144 malware infections from a user base of 1,297,828 machines, but it indicates a problem that is worse than Microsoft has been admitting to." Microsoft hasn't responded yet to this report.
After all, the survey missed classifying Vista as malware -- how accurate could it possibly be?
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
Please read the article first so that the statistical numbers sink in.
Next, think about an Ubuntu install vs. a Vista install. Vista caught a lot of flak for the "cancel vs. install" thing but sudo('s GUI counterpart) is not much different, right down to the dark fade as it asks the user what to do. Since Linux clearly stole that idea from Windows, well, won't some leet folks please write a virus for Linux and level the playing field? Linux users are so tired of having nothing to painstakingly tweek.
Vista Had a Positive Security Image?
Next J_DarkElf will debate the page sized used, was it Letter, Legal, A4, Memo?
step 1: Start a support/news website.
step 2: Publish story "OMG Malware!!1!"
step 3: ????????
step 4: Profit!
This was my first thought too. But then I realised that they've obviously omitted that fact on purpose, to solve an infinite recursion paradox:
Vista is malware
Vista can host malware
Therefore vista is self-hosting
Vista is unstable
Therefore, vista can't host a stable OS
Therefore Vista can't host itse..
Oh, never mind. It works out just fine.
Slightly off topic, but your post reminded me of Dilbert today: http://www.dilbert.com/fast/2008-05-20/
Not saying there's a correlation to be made...
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
"New Malware Report Hits Vista's Security Image" -- Vista had a security image?
Or we combine the powers of water, air, earth, fire and love to form Captain Planet. Or - even better - we combine Cheetos, Coke, anonymity, too much spare time and Linux to form Captain Fanboy, with the power of writing scathing flames on Slashdot.
Of course, Microsoft could counter that by combining the powers of Soviet Russia, old Koreans, Nathalie Portman, hot grits and Cowboy Neal to form Captain Meme, who drowns out everything Captain Fanboy posts with a flood of +5, Funny posts.
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
27% of Vista machines were compromised
This is indeed troubling (notice position of tongue and cheek). How can we fix this? I propose a five step program
5. Electro shock all users the click "install now" without thinking
4. Remove the fingers of users that follow the links on penis enlargement spam
3. Publicly flog all users that attempt to install that "special media player" to get to "free p0rn" from a any site in the former communist block.
2. Revoke all credit card, debit card, home depot card and sears charge cards for those that purchase a fake Rolex based on an email they got
1. Remove any and all computers from folks that say "My computers running slow, you know about computers, can you look at mine"
Respectfully,
Cluge
PS - A more meaningful less painful solution would be an OS lock down - IE think a live image distro where the Hard Drive is only used to store user data. Every reboot takes you back to square one - a heavily locked down environment with basic abilities allowed, but little else.
"Science is about ego as much as it is about discovery and truth " - I said it, so sue me.
...Vista's new security features won't help much against it.Why is it that only malware writers can write software that is Vista compatible?
"I planned within my means and got a fixed rate mortgage, so where's MY bailout?" -cafepress