Unprotected PCs Fall To Hacker Bots In Just Four Minutes

Techweb ^ | 11/30/2004 | Gregg Keizer

[zeugma]

Your comments regarding the hightened visibility of internet connections on dialup computers are well taken. It is generally much more obvious when your computer is attempting to connect to the internet than it would be on a broadband connection.

That's why I'd generally reccommend someone running windows who installs a firewall for the first time, to go ahead and reinstall from scratch after setting up the firewall just in case unless they are absolutely sure that nothing is on their box.

The sad thing about all this is that the vast majority of computer users are hopelessly lost and uninformed about anything running on their computers beyond the absolute basics of what they need to know to create an email, letter, or browse a website.

I can't say that I'm suprised by this, as it is the case with almost all modern devices. I would hope that some day basic security measures like separating your firewall from your working boxes will be as common knowledge as is the need to change the oil on your car regularly. The analogy with an automobile is actually quite apt for me as it illustrates several points quite well.

Let us consider two people, Alice and Bob. Alice is a computer wiz. She's a hardcore Linux user that makes a computer work for her not the other way around. She never gets infected by anything, runs a complex home network that connects her several PCs together with her PVR. She has regular backups of everything important, and she keeps up with everything in a way that practically guarantees smooth and easy computing for herself and everyone in her houshold.

Now let's consider Bob. He knows nothing about computers, but has a fairly inexpensive system he bought to "get connected with that internet thing", and because his son and daughter had been pestering him about it for long enough that he'd finally just bought the thing to shut them up. He uses it occasionally to check out NASCAR standings. He's running an unpatched copy of windows xp because that's what came with the computer. Guess what? Within a month his computer is running horribly slowly because of the 30 spyware programs have completely taken over his computer. It's also been spewing spam across the net daily because, unbeknownst to him, he's be hijacked. Is Bob an idiot? No. he's just uninformed of what it takes to keep his computer running smoothly.

Let's take another look at Alice. She drives a nice car, but it is not the most reliable thing in the world. Her brakes are kind of mushy because she hasn't had them looked at for the past 50,000 miles. She's also doing serious damage to her engine, though she doesn't know it, because it's been 15,000 miles since she last changed her oil. Her tires are also not in the shape they could be because they are under-inflated and her alignment is off, and it's causing uneven wear. Is she an idiot? No. She just doesn't know better. She knows how to put it in drive and put gas in to get it where she needs to go.

Bob's car runs like the day it was made. Better, in some respects because he's tinkered with it a bit and has kept on top of everthing that it takes to make the thing reliable, powerful, and well-maintained. He's been working on automobiles since he was a teenager, and knows everything that a good mechanic should.

What is the main difference between Alice and Bob? Well, Alice is a computer nerd who happens to also have a car that she uses as a tool. Bob is a mechanic who happens to have a computer to use as a tool to get information he wants. Neither are morons, they just have different interests, and different knowledge bases. Should Alice learn more about her car so it will run better? Probably. It would serve her well in the end to change her oil regularly, and have the alignments and other service done when reccommended to do so. The same can go for Bob. His computer is going to be an unreliable mess until he gets a firewall and virus scanner. He should probably learn a little about how things are organized on his PC so he can find the pictures of his daughter that he'd saved in some mysterious directory that he can no longer remember the name of.

The bottom line is that there is a lot of technology out there that we all use on a daily basis that we really don't know a whole heck of a lot about. Some of this lack of knowledge can be dangerous. For instance, it's not too terribly difficult to install a ceiling fan. It can be downright dangerous to do so while the power is still on. We don't all have to be computer professionals, mechanics, and electricians, but we really should learn enough about the basics to not hurt ourselves and others.

Wow. I got kinda long-winded there. Shame that it's the bottom of a post that probably won't be seen much anymore. Maybe I'll post it to another thread some other time.

Have a great day!

[shellshocked]

The article doesn't say if they enabled XP's personal firewall. It is off by default under SP1.

[ShadowAce]

Bump

[antiRepublicrat]

. If they were left wide open on the Mac, you'd have the same result as with the Pee Cee or any other platform

Not necessarily. For example, Microsoft's RPC is notorious for being full of gaping security holes just waiting for someone to access the machine and exploit them. Is there any OS X equivalent?

[antiRepublicrat]

Firefox runs fine on my win98 computer. Takes a little longer to load than IE

That's only because Windows loads most of IE at startup.

[antiRepublicrat]

Which is worse? Not to have bought at all at 13... or to have bought and sold at 34, half of what it has reached today?

I wanted to buy really bad around mid-'98, but I had no money. Given a several grand back then, I'd be rich now.

[governsleastgovernsbest]

Could be that factors unrelated to Zone Alarm were messing up my WIFI. I did find the frequent pop up notices requesting access to be a pain, though I realize that's not an excessive price to pay if it prevents serious problems of various sorts.

[Glenn]

RPC is a standard. Are you telling me no one in the history of computing has ever tried to exploit RPC on the Mac?

[UseYourHead]

I was wondering if that would tweak you.

[avg_freeper]

I'm always game for good a tweaking!

It was more of a runtime machine-language manipulation / flag viewer tool than anything. It could also be upgraded to get some nice assembly functions too.

Not an interface to any kind of OS but you could still do some very bad things with it.

[antiRepublicrat]

RPC is a standard. Are you telling me no one in the history of computing has ever tried to exploit RPC on the Mac?

Microsoft's implementation is notoriously full of holes, plus they use it in unneccessary places, allowing more exposure.

[abigail2]

Thanks for the links...

[abigail2]

THanks for the ping devolve!

[fabian]

thanks for the ping abigail2

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Good comments.

[gopheraj]

I checked it out and want to go to that. However, it says that you can't run it with other firewall sotfware. Would that new Spyblaster from Windows be considered a firewall?

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

Would that new Spyblaster from Windows be considered a firewall?

If you are talking about the Spyware cleaner software that MS just released (which used to be Giant Software) then, no. That is not a firewall. However, if you are using Windows XP, I believe that there is a built in firewall that can be enabled and disabled. I'm not certain. I don't use XP. Perhaps someone else here would know for sure.

I use Outpost along with SpywareGuard by JavaCool software. Both load at startup and run in the background nicely.

[Truth29]

At the risk of dozens of hostile replies, I will proffer the observation that it is interesting that no one even talks about terminal based systems as an alternative for casual surfing or emailing. Systems like the old webtv or MSN TV network don't duplicate PC capabilities, but allow secure Internet commerce transactions, FR posting, and email without having to worry about viruses, firewalls, etc.

[gopheraj]

Yes that is what I meant. Thank you for your reply.

[zeugma]

I, too find it interesting that 'dumb' terminals have never really caught on even in places where they make a heck of a lot of sense. For instance, I was at a coffee shop today that had a few PCs available for internet surfing. The setup was basically 3 PCs networked together tied into a DSL/Cable internet.connection. All three of them were XP based, yet were essentially nothing more than browsers as far as other software available on them.

It would have made a lot more sense to me if the proprietor had set up a single server with three X-based thin clients connected to them. These terminals would be incredibly easy to hve operating in a kiosk mode, yet at the same time be completely safe for use in that it would be drop-dead simple to have a standard configuration availabl at login that is completely reset with each logout.

Instead, the owner is running 3 full-featured PCs with a virus tar-baby. I can't imagine what it is like trying to keep the systems from being constantly infected with every kind of spyware imaginable.