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20 Years of Innovative Windows Malware
snydeq writes "InfoWorld's Woody Leonhard takes a look at the past 20 years of innovative Windows malware — an evolution that provides insights into the kinds of attacks to come. From macro viruses, to interstitial infections, to spray attacks, to industrial espionage, 'there's been a clear succession, with the means, methods, and goals changing definitively over time,' Leonhard writes, outlining the rise of Windows malware as a succession of ingenious breakthroughs to nefarious ends."
I wish they'd link to the print page: http://infoworld.com/print/151021
At least this way you avoid the obnoxious SIX pages layout for what could fit in a single page easily. I know, I know... The submitter is always an InfoWorld employee and /. editors don't know the meaning of the word "edit", but hey, I can still ask? Beg, maybe?
yes, because nobody has ever stolen credit card numbers from a LAMP server.
Don't bother. It's practically an article of faith around here that Windows is badly-made, that Microsoft is a malicious, profiteering drag on innovation, and that Windows OS security is responsible for the spread of malware. This view might have been partially accurate 15 years ago, but in 2011, the worm has turned. Companies are made up of people, and people change and mature. Microsoft is trying to be a good corporate citizen these days, and frankly, I'd be far more worried about Apple, both from a technical-security perspective and from a market lock-in perspective.
What ? That's like saying steering isn't something car drivers should ever have to worry about.
The end user is the single biggest security risk in any remotely modern system.
What security features were missing until Windows 7 ?
With all respect, that's an absolutely facile statement.
1. Add up the total number of devices that run some kind of Linux kernel in this world and it would certainly exceed the number of instances of OS X being used and may even give Windows a run for its money - I'm talking everything from DVD and media players, through car engine management systems to Internet servers. The number of desktop instances of Linux is probably very small in comparison, I agree, but they could all suffer from security exploits.
2. Unless you are talking about specific kernel exploits (which ultimately may only ever cause a system to slow down or crash, rather than allow access to the system), then to say "Linux exploits" is meaningless because it depends what applications and services are running on top of that kernel - again, that will be determined by what that particular installation of Linux is expected to do.
3. Based on the above, then exploits onto a Linux system will occur as a result of an application exploit onto that system - e.g. OpenSSH, Apache Web Server, FTP, etc. Since those vulnerabilities invariably occur in programming errors within the source code, and that source code can probably be ported to a number of platforms including Windows or OS X, then those platforms might also be at risk of the same vulnerability.
I have no problem with anyone having a go at the low number of Linux desktops because most of who use it just use it and don't care how popular it is. (Yes, there are zealots in ALL user bases.) But if you are going to make a comment then do so from a position of knowledge, rather than basing that comment purely on the FUD you may have heard.
And to be honest, believing that a particular vulnerability *only* affects Linux may not strictly be true, as I have explained - and that could be dangerous from a seucrity perspective.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
Why have we put up with 20 years of Windows virus's for so long?
TWENTY YEARS!
What a complete waste of time. And my time is worth much more that the paltry licence fees I have shelled out over the years!!!
Is there any way to say that this is not an epic fail for the Win16/32 platform? On other platforms (Mac, Linux, other Unix's) the total amount of malware is hardly about 100 items in that time... Even if it is around 1000 (I really don't know) it is insignificant in comparison.
I have had not one malware issue in ten years of hosting Linux servers and five years as a Desktop OS on multiple PC's. My last Windows issue was a false positive: AVG thinking it had found a torjan in hal.dll and "healing" it. Thanks AVG. Several hours of work to restore that machine... (the re-imaging broke).
No Windows on every one of my desktops thanks!
If by "article of faith" you mean "consistent with the long history of this corporation, its products, and its business practices" then I agree. The tone with which you make that statement reminds me of a saying: I'm sorry if the correct way of doing things offends you.
The only thing I would add to your statement is that the security of Windows is part of the problem. The other part of the problem is Microsoft's insistence (because they make more profit this way and never face liability) on marketing Windows to completely clueless users with claims that it's "easier to use than ever!" etc. A significant fraction of the security problems would be mitigated if Microsoft would be more honest and unambiguously state that their products may endanger the user if the user does not learn about and follow good security practices.
As it stands now, users have a sense of entitlement which leads them to believe that security is always someone else's job. Those with this mentality are among the first to be compromised. I don't like this any more than you do but I accept the reality of it. The positive side is it means that users willing to invest in their own experience are far less likely to have problems in this area. So everyone gets to make a choice, and choice is good.
Another significant fraction of the problems would be mitigated if Windows shipped with all non-essential services and background processes disabled by default. A user savvy enough to enable them is more likely to be savvy enough to secure them.
I don't understand why people feel a need to make statements like this. Was someone claiming that companies are not made up of people? Was anyone stating that people are entirely static entities who never change?
I'm sure it's a total coincidence that Microsoft has never been more irrelevant. They are no longer the source of all the new and interesting innovations.
Apple made a wise move by basing OSX on BSD Unix. They won't end up reinventing Unix that way and they are starting with a mature codebase that has already experienced a great number of security attacks. Of course that isn't and won't be perfect, but it would be worse still if they started from scratch.
I absolutely agree with you about the market lock-in. I don't like that no matter who is doing it. It's against the users' interests when Microsoft does it and it's against the users' interests when Apple does it. It represents a failure to put the customer first. The only reason why it's so common in the software industry is that most people don't understand computers.
Vendor lock-in sends a clear message though unfortunately it largely falls on deaf ears: it means the vendor does not really believe in its products or its excellence and is afraid of having to compete on a level playing field.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
...at least something about Windows is innovative.
So, an application problem, then ?
I assume you mean UAC. Windows NT has had this since day one, Vista and 7 just made it more automatic.
So did other OSes until about the same time. Are you asserting their security, also, was "a giant sign that says, "Please don't own this box."" ?
System security shouldn't be something users should ever have to worry about. While it's true making a perfect lock is impossible, Windows security until 7 has basically been a giant sign that says, "Please don't own this box."
Absolute rubbish! And that's coming from me, a mostly Linux user.
Microsoft made some design mistakes in Windows and cocked up on marketing making people believe that it is entirely possible to use Windows as an inexperienced user and never have to worry about security. In Vista they tried to counteract that bad information by annoying everyone with "in your face" security reminders called UACs, realised they'd gone too far with that and backed off a little in Windows 7. (And that *really* is the extent of my Vista and Windows 7 knowledge because I've not yet used either.)
But even up to and including XP, if it's patched up to the latest Service Pack and patch version, has a firewall activated, a virus checker and sits behind a NAT router on the Internet, then that system is going to be pretty safe just sitting there.
The fact is, that XP machine will get viruses and malware because an inexperienced user has not understood what he's doing or has been tricked into clicking something he should not have done. Sorry, but if you insist on downloading cracked games and cracked software from BitTorrent, then you're going to be putting viruses onto the machine that will end up trashing it, it's that simple.
But, on the other hand, if you get rid of applications like Outlook and IE that hook deeply into the core system, replace them with standard applications like Thunderbird and Firefox (or countless other web and mail clients) that sit *on top* of Windows, rather than *within it*, then that's already going to block a lot of malware getting onto the system in the first place. Then take care with email attachments, stay aware from dodgy software and sites, and like me you'll have several XP systems that haven't seen a virus in years.
Ever OS (yes, even Linux) has security weaknesses that can be opened up by a user who is not sure about what he/she is doing.
Windows is *not* an easy system to maintain, XP needs as much care and attention from an administration and day-to-day maintenance perspective than anyone of my Linux servers do, maybe even more so in my case because I'm much better at automating stuff in shell/Perl scripts on Linux than I am on Windows.
But it's got its bad security reputation because Microsoft made some poor marketing decisions and aimed it at people who believe they don't need any sysadmin skills to maintain it, and your comments don't honestly do any justice to the number of really good Windows sysadmins who make a pretty good job of keeping it secure, in my experience.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.