informationweek.com — In fact, after only 8 seconds, the unsuspecting little rascal was undergoing the machine equivalent of being turned into a "Pod person from the planet Mars!" First, it was hit by Sasser, one of the fastest spreading worms on the Internet. Then it started downloading strange programs from mysterious internet addresses.
Feb 2, 2007 View in Crawl 4
sloppyjoeFeb 3, 2007
This is stupid.. title should read "How long does it take an idiot to catch a computer virus?" I don't run any AV software full time, I keep it around to scan anything I deem suspicious and I'm aware of what I'm doing on t3h interwebs.. I've not had a virus in years....
Closed AccountFeb 3, 2007
It doesn't exist. This story is the typical scaremongering that sell copies of that Norton bloatware and keeps people scared!Its blatantly inaccurate, and I marked it as such and so should anyone else who actually has a clue, unlike the submitter of the story.
gsiliceoFeb 3, 2007
Don't worry mac fanboys as your favorite plataform becomes more and more popular virus and bugs will start appearing. There is a price we windows users have to pay for the advantages we have, we just have to be paranoic, update everything, firewalls, antivirus, antispyware, etc
Closed AccountFeb 3, 2007
NO! First, it's your responsibility to protect yourself. Get a (good, not XP) firewall. Get a (or multiple) good virus scan program. Get MULTIPLE good adware/spyware/malware programs. Update your HOSTS file regularly.OK, so you have a responsibility. So do others. Those RELEASING viruses should face jurisdictional prosecution. Those writing the code, even compiling it (if need be), should face no penalties. In fact, they should be encouraged and rewarded. Their efforts point out flaws in imperfect systems that would otherwise go unnoticed and thus would never be improved if not for the existence of viruses.
sanchoFeb 3, 2007
That's fine for a learning experience, but you'll probably just find old viruses/trojans/worms doing this. Run a fully patched install, or check your mail for executables to see some of the new stuff.Some of the trojans out there are nasty. There's a relatively new one called Peacom (I think?) that basically sets up a P2P botnet and encrypts all of its connections. It's pretty hard for an IDS to deal with this sort of behavior.
caseycooldFeb 3, 2007
Most IPs will block you if you start sending a lot of stuff out, especially here in the USA. But roadrunner doesn't filter my traffic at all.And as for 8 seconds? B.S.I have run with 2 firewalls and Norton Corp. edition, ad-aware pro and spybot, behind a router, and I have gotten crap before (was difficult), but I was looking for it.I usually don't run anything other than the default windows firewall. And you know what? I have been to all kinds of nice hack sites/warez sites and I haven't gotten a good virus in YEARS.And since IE7 I can't seem to find and malware.Just don't click "download" on stupid crap, and you wont get infected. It's that easy.Buried for old and inaccurate.
thatsiebguyFeb 3, 2007
I stuck an unpatched, un SP1/2 XP machine naked on the net outside our DMZ. Nothing happened to it. That was some three months ago and its still there with nothing abnormal on it. Perplexed, I tried it from home on my cable modem (outside of my router) with a virtual machine and nothing happened to it. I was kinda pissed, I wanted to see some pwnage. I concluded that the last set of upgrades by our ISP included filtering the network.
kelmonFeb 3, 2007
@takedaI understand where you are coming from but I hope you realise that what you are proposing is completely implausible. A car is a relatively simple device to manage safely from the perspective of the user but even so it can take months for someone to learn how to use it such that they can pass a driving test and receive their qualification. In comparison, despite advances in interfaces and simplification, the modern computer is massively complex such that attempting to explain how to use one safely to everyone who wishes to use it would result in a lot of people just losing patience with the whole thing. What will eventually result is a barrier to access a resource that everyone can, and should, have access to.It would be nice to educate people about how to use computers safely but its far easier, practical and overall better to make the computer itself simpler to use and less liable to security breaches. For those who still want the freedom to do what they want with a computer then I'd suggest that computing equivalent of the kit-car but for Joe Consumer a locked-down system would probably be all they need if it is designed well.