I still find it funny that the majority of people here still think that computer virii actually exist =)
A computer virus has to be capable of self replication and spreading throughout a system. Modern TROJANS look like virii but are in fact still trojans, I can't think of any major virus outbreak via e-mail or any other system which has actually utilized open code on a large system to automatically infect a large number of machines, they've ALL required the user to click a button somewhere along the way to allow the infection to occur, this is why I don't get virus infections. I keep all my software up to the second patched and I'm behind a hardware firewall. This isn't to say that in theory a VERY determined person couldn't find a hole through to my system, but the virus impact on the PC industry right now is stupid user syndrome mainly.

A lot of trojans however are silent, turning the machine infected into a bot that a central host can control. Botnets are a huge concern right now because almost no one that has one of these things knows it's there and it can down entire networks even if the data being sent by any client is quiet small. They're also keyloggers or what not trying to get financial data etc.. but again, if you have a brain and highly control what programs you use on your system the risk is incredibly low.

I have in the last 10 years gotten myself 1 trojan during a lax moment of paying attention to something I downloaded from a suspect source that I should have used scanner on, and that took a whopping 30 minutes to fix.

 

I've found a site that was infected doing legitimate research, there should of been nothing wrong with the site other than it was a trap. My scanner saved me, nothing was installed since the alarm went off and I backed out as fast as possible. I do full and in depth scans now and again just to make sure.

My point is you don't have to click on anything to get one, just go to the wrong site. It is a Trojan, but the infected site just sits there an waits. It wasn't set up that way by the owners, they were hacked. It can be argued they are still viruses only in that their life cycles are much more complex. The point is taken they don't use the older replications methods we used to associate with the traditional biological models. However, there are biological models of life forms that make this stuff look simple.

I can honestly argue I have never had one of the self replications types. I have never ever used Outlook, which was almost designed to propagate viruses (not really, but the local address book was irresistible to the virus coders). This was a deliberate choice. Traditional web based emails tend to control this quite well, and I have 3 addresses in reserve, just in case.

Back when I was using a dial up modem I tended to be more lax, and picked up several over time. Using a 98SE computer also slowed it down, since everyone else was using viruses tweaked for XP. Back then they tried to get you to call bogus 888 numbers to charge you $100/minute when you were infected. Thinking about it, the malicious viruses were a phase, that seemed to have gone away for now. Cold War era and all that.

With the advent of the worm making the rounds in Iran, and now China, with an innocent looking (and unconvincing) USA on the sidelines this could change again. Politics and organized crime seem to be main motivators in developing these suckers.

This thread has been a stroll down memory lane for me. It has also pointed out some of the forces driving the creation of this crap. The threats have changed a heck of a lot over the years, along with the motivations.

 

I've found a site that was infected doing legitimate research, there should of been nothing wrong with the site other than it was a trap.

Stupid admin syndrome.

My scanner saved me, nothing was installed since the alarm went off and I backed out as fast as possible. I do full and in depth scans now and again just to make sure.

Lucky user attributing use of a virus scanner to proof that they're useful for virus protection, hearsay.

I've lived longer without a virus infection than the bulk majority of the human race without an infection, only difference is the application of thought before action.

I personally do not think that there is ANYthing that can happen to a person that the person themself has no control over. Sure the threats and motivations have changed, but not the stupid people at large.

Statistical fact, half the worlds population is bellow average intelligence, even then smart people still infect themselves unintentionally.

 

In windows I never use any tipical virus removal software most of them are TSR (terminate and stay resident) programs that takes a lot of machine resources and make everything slow. The easiest thing is what I just said back up your data. I used to mess with scanners before and most of the time I thought I was clean and found out that I had another variant. Malwarebytes.org seems to be a good one detect trojans and spywere others cannot also works on spyware does not reside in memory you run it once in a while.
I don`t agree that firewall is going to 100% protect you most of the web pages use directx and you need to acept their cookies and if you want to enter you have to acept their terms that is where mostly the spyware script enters the system.
Now there is the keystroke logger that slows donwn the keyboard I got that the other day in my wife`s machine.
Bill, also I do remember too the DOS stoned virus that used to infest floppy disks that was a real pain.

 

If you have a Windows based system such as Vista or 7, even XP supports it I believe, there's Windows Defender, which acts against the worst of the nasties. Even without Windows Defender installed all current Microsoft scheduled updates come with a trogan removal kit.

It's not their job to administer the OS of their users but they had to do something because people are stupid.

 

BLADE software eliminates 'drive-by downloads' from malicious websites (w/ Video)

 

I use Linux. Ubuntu to be specific.

No, there are no viruses for it yet.

However, it does not mean this will be true forever.

Many old Unix machines suffered from viruses. Back then though they were mainly written by bored students, now, most are written by criminal organisations.

You must always make sure you have the latest patches. Being open source, Linux typically has a faster bug turn around time, because bugs are fixed as the community sees fit not necessarily as a company sees fit (however, a lot of developers of Linux are employed to do so by Red Hat, Novell, Canonical etc.)

I would like to see Linux having a higher market share. But I wouldn't want it to have 90%. Because then it would be as bad as Windows. I think the solution is more competition. If the three main OSes had 30% each, then one attack would not be able to bring down all the computers.

I use Ubuntu not just for security, but because I dislike Microsoft. My old Windows XP laptop warns me that Windows is not genuine, even though it was the original version shipped. I hate Microsoft spying on my computer.

Also, the software is mostly zero cost. Which is a big advantage, for a student like me. Sure, you can download it for *free*, but it will come and bite you later.

 

No, there are no viruses for it yet.

Doesn't need to be, if you forget about your firewall or miss one little thing there's a really good chance you're open to attack from a security vulnerability if you're software isn't up to the second updated.. Virii are only one way into a system. If you're running any kind of external services especially one's you've installed yourself you're probably MUCH more at risk than you think.

Personally I think as far as that goes a hardwarefirewall with uber strict rules is the only way to protect from that.

 

Doesn't need to be, if you forget about your firewall or miss one little thing there's a really good chance you're open to attack from a security vulnerability if you're software isn't up to the second updated.. Virii are only one way into a system. If you're running any kind of external services especially one's you've installed yourself you're probably MUCH more at risk than you think.

Personally I think as far as that goes a hardwarefirewall with uber strict rules is the only way to protect from that.

Sorry, but there is no such thing as "virii", just "viruses". See here: http://dictionary.reference.com/help/faq/language/g63.html, and this excellent article by Tom Christiansen: http://linuxmafia.com/~rick/faq/plural-of-virus.html

Ubuntu ships with the default firewall iptables. This makes all ports stealth, which means they don't return as closed or open - they might as well not as exist. However, it still responds to ping, so you should turn this off.

A hardware firewall is rarely that. The firewalls usually run application software which decides to block or allow traffic. Sure - it's a separate box, but the software on it isn't special.

 

Wow, you sent me on a nice chase tom66. You're completely correct about virii, I'm not even sure where I picked that up because I've been using it for like 10 years, but I read a lot of online forums where I guess it was a common thing then. I will correct my future uses of it!

Stealth ports don't mean they don't exist it means they can't be scanned, if they didn't exist you couldn't use them. If a host returns a ping this is a really strong indicator that someone is home to screw with so even without port scanning common ports can be tested for known vulnerabilities in common packages.

When I refer to a firewall I mean one thing and one thing only, the device connected most directly to the Internet connection itself. In my case my router is a true hardware firewall, it's electronics run by firmware controlling the internet connection. Lets not niggle about the differences between software and firmware because there is no hardline distinction, flashable firmware should in such a case be called software.

There is nothing special about the firewall on a hardware firewall, it is however not except through a login procedure controllable by the host.

 

Wow, you sent me on a nice chase tom66. You're completely correct about virii, I'm not even sure where I picked that up because I've been using it for like 10 years, but I read a lot of online forums where I guess it was a common thing then. I will correct my future uses of it!

It's a common word used by people who try to make themselves seem more clever than they are. (Not that you're doing this - as you said you probably picked it up from said people.)

Stealth ports don't mean they don't exist it means they can't be scanned, if they didn't exist you couldn't use them. If a host returns a ping this is a really strong indicator that someone is home to screw with so even without port scanning common ports can be tested for known vulnerabilities in common packages.

You can try and send packets to them, but unless application software has opened them, they don't exist, and you will get no response. For example, I occasionally run Apache on localhost. This opens port 80 and with a port scan (such as GRC's ShieldsUP) I can see this.

When I refer to a firewall I mean one thing and one thing only, the device connected most directly to the Internet connection itself. In my case my router is a true hardware firewall, it's electronics run by firmware controlling the internet connection. Lets not niggle about the differences between software and firmware because there is no hardline distinction, flashable firmware should in such a case be called software.

There is nothing special about the firewall on a hardware firewall, it is however not except through a login procedure controllable by the host.

Yes, but I don't see how a box running a firewall on it is any different from your own computer running a firewall. It's easier to manage, and protects against insecure computers on your network, but apart from that how is it any different?

 

Tom, are you feeling alright?
You just said you don't see how running an a dedicated firewall is different than running one on the local machine, and then immediately stated two overwhelmingly clear reasons why running a dedicated firewall would be beneficial. It's easier to manage, and it protect against insecure local computers. I have three machines on my local network, four if you count an ipod touch, my wife is quiet good about viruses but I have a 13 year old son and his Ipod to deal with. My situation is not unique in the slightest.

 

Tom, are you feeling alright? You just said you don't see how running an a dedicated firewall is different than running one on the local machine, and then immediately stated two overwhelmingly clear reasons why running a dedicated firewall would be beneficial. It's easier to manage, and it protect against insecure local computers. I have three machines on my local network, four if you count an ipod touch, my wife is quiet good about viruses but I have a 13 year old son and his Ipod to deal with. My situation is not unique in the slightest.

Good points.

I guess I meant that running a firewall on a router or even a dedicated firewall box is not any more secure than running a firewall on your any computer. I didn't count the effect of other computers on the network. I have a network and local firewall for that reason.

 

Network layer firewalls, also called packet filters, operate at a relatively low level of the TCP/IP protocol stack, not allowing packets to pass through the firewall unless they match the established rule set.

I would recommend you setup hardware to fliter traffic and then apply a low level firewall to protect your pc

 

they say in many security books that proper network security and system hardening are the main 2 things to do to provide best benefits. using IPS, firewall, nat for network and removing un needed extras, host ips, firewall, AV software, and closing all ports that aren't needed should be closed.

 

Viruses normally will change chop-chop and manufacture illness and this is often specifically what a worm that infects your laptop will. It grows and it spreads and it's extremely contagious to alternative computers. Researchers and technology gurus are actually operating round the clock to spot the computers, systems, and elements among that square measure the foremost liable to attack and infection.