sophos.com — Sophos recently tested Windows 7 against 10 in the wild viruses. The result? 8 of the 10 ran successfully on the newest version of Windows. Windows 7 may be the most secure Windows ever, but is that good enough?
Nov 3, 2009 View in Crawl 4
mweatherNov 5, 2009
@therightclique "Thinking there's an AV app that is 100% effective is just naive. "That's kind of my point. Without such a product, there is no way of knowing for sure you are virus free. You could be infected for years and never know it. Not all malware makes itself obvious. Botnets don't want to be found, and the best way to do that is to not be noticed by the user.
johnnysoftwareNov 8, 2009
Not really true, anymore, davidyourduke.The so-called zero-day exploits are getting to be pretty common now. Windows has been out so long and if you notice from the patch notes, the bugs not only were out since the day the current version of Windows came out - they sometimes date all the way back to versions of MS-Windows 3-4 or so versions before that.AV relies on different techniques, but break down what those are and their limitations:a) signatures - often useless against dynamic viruses which are very typical ones this yearb) heuristics - you have to have seen "something like" the virus before or realize there is "something fishy" it is doing; well, the AV is already out so the virus writer has the advantageNow, a big of logic. If heuristics *really* worked well as a "catch all" then we would never need to update your AV signatures or the code of the AV software itself. But we know we do - constantly. So, heuristics are just an "hope this works!" kind of thing is all. Wow, I suck at football but I guessed the correct term for this that is used in football a lot: it's a "Hail Mary play," basically.Oh, and signatures - it goes without saying that those only work on a virus that has been seen before or one that is descended from one seen before and thus it has copies of some of its code - and just the right code, at that - in it.Dyanamic malware mutates the code before it serves it up on the web, or whatever the contaminated transfer medium is. So, it always arrives different than it has been seen elsewhere. It might be possible to create a dyanamic signature but I will bet taht takes a LOT of time to do it right. And to create a dyanamic signature for a virus you have not seen before sounds really, really, really hard to do. Especially when your AV code is out there published already and the attacker is writing his code, looking at it and/or testing against it.So basically what I am saying is you are going to get hacked period if your OS/apps are vulnerable and you are relying on AV software as your sole barrier between them and people who want to attack your OS. There are additional barriers too and you can always choose not to run the most frequently attacked OS and/or apps.I read the whole sentence describing one AV tool recently and was disappointed, although the 99% figure looked impressive. Because the sentence said it was effective against 99% of half a million malwares and everyone knows there are well over a million MS-Windows viruses. So... wow, safety from 48% of malware does not sound very good.
641498661Nov 12, 2009
hi..I am from ChinaWe can be friends?
Closed AccountNov 14, 2009
Good point about anti-trust, but this is one area where consumers would clearly benefit from a built-in security package provided by Microsoft (and turned on by default). It is not like bundling a media player, which is clearly optional and outside of the OS responsibility.First off, they'd be protected from viruses and malware from the outset, without needing to do anything.Second, and far more importantly, they'd be protected from performance-killing anti-virus programs (such as Norton) that often come preinstalled. I get red in the face when I see how much they slow down a typical machine -- buy a $1000 laptop with Norton preinstalled, and suddenly you have a $400-level performance. Most users are not aware of it, and even if they are, they're unable or afraid to replace the program.
nv1962Nov 17, 2009
On the upside, only 2 out of 10 current in the wild viruses run on Windows 3.11.
clearzNov 21, 2009
SpeedSteamBoat if by permissions architecture you mean the one Linux borrowed from Unix based on 3 octal numbers you got to be kidden me. Windows has had a way more advanced system since the NTFS drive architecture was introduced in Windows NT. Just try googling the subject you will see that my felllow coders who are busy making money developing for both architectures insteady of ranting on about which OS is better agree.
johnnysoftwareJan 20, 2010
You are thinking of TROJANS. Viruses, you do not have to manually launch.Viruses require some action by the user, but not explicitly launching it.More like: looking at a web page, looking at an image file like say one served from MSN Norway ad server, looking at a comic strip PDF, opening a Microsoft Word document, inserting an ordinary thumb drive into a USB slot of a computer running Microsoft Windows.However, in this case, I think you make a good point. Most of the so-called viruses names start with the word Troj. So, they would have to be dropped onto a system with a virus or worm, or someone bad.
Closed AccountJan 20, 2010
But most of the time, it's trojans that people infect themselves with.
johnnysoftwareJan 29, 2010
Yeah, well, news flash: ** the antivirus programs do not work once the virus/worm that get through, and it happens on fully updated Windows systems with the latest updates for anti-virus packages. **Oh, and once the malware gets in, say by you looking at a web page or clicking a link in IE/Outlook usually... the anvirus software ** disables Windows Updates and security program's updates**. So, no antirus programs are getting updated at that point. In many cases, you cannot even connect up to their web site anymore with any program: IE, any web browser, FTP, utility programs, etc.The bright side is... nothing. There is no bright side if you are using IE. If you use Windows you can run Firefox when you go to Internet sites. That keeps you way safer.