Proper systems design and management will prevent 99.99% of all break ins to servers. In most cases it's admins running outdated software, or software which isn't written properly.

 

Actually yes it is their fault. Sure there are DOS attacks that an admin can't deal with but as far as the software goes, they put the stuff they use online as they use it, they're ultimately culpable beacuse they chose to run it without looking into the details. The details are many, doesn't excuse a user (or admin) from running it though.


No one in a war has to have done anything wrong for there to be a war. Once a site hits a certain user density it automatically involves itself in the war. The war for our cash, for our attentions, the original intention of the site doesn't even have to BE this, it just have to reach that density.

 

dataman, I hate to say this, but it is true; anyone intelligent enough to follow those instructions, know what they're doing and successfully get their system up and running again should NOT have gotten into the situation in the first place. Even in a multi user household if you're not monitoring the persons using the system well enough to make sure they know how not to get infected it can't happen.

 

I could follow those instructions but I still got infected by the AVG thing. I've got a virus scanner, firewall and a realtime spyware detector. My only failing was that I hadn't updated flash to the latest version.

 

I could follow those instructions but I still got infected by the AVG thing. I've got a virus scanner, firewall and a realtime spyware detector. My only failing was that I hadn't updated flash to the latest version.

Flash is like a sieve when it comes to security. I hate having to use it on Ubuntu. Not only is it insecure, but it's buggy, slow, unstable and the only piece of proprietary software I'm using (which just makes it stick out.)

Of course at the moment Ubuntu has zero viruses going against it but I wonder if this will stay the same with the new social engineering viruses. The computer is only as secure as the user.

 

he new social engineering viruses.

The new?! Lol! Social engineering 'hacks' have existed since telephone networks first existed.
There is no way to protect from stupid user syndrome outside of FULLY closed systems, problem is the first thing hackers do with closed system is open them up.

Linux is relatively immune to virii, however this is because there isn't enough of a user base (and when I say user base I mean human beinging using linux based machines for every day access) for a hacker to even care about it.

 

Windows is designed to make money not to be a computer OS. It never was. Windows 7 is a bit better. All this nonsense began when Mr. Gates mother stole DOS from IBM the rest is history. Windows should be prohibited to be installed in any electronic devices. Even OSX is light years better.

 

Windows is designed to make money not to be a computer OS. It never was. Windows 7 is a bit better. All this nonsense began when Mr. Gates mother stole DOS from IBM the rest is history. Windows should be prohibited to be installed in any electronic devices. Even OSX is light years better.

No that is not true. Microsoft bought the software that later become MS-DOS from Seattle Computer Products. You can read more about the history here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DOS

 

This thread is from a number of off-topic posts in the original thread - http://forum.allaboutcircuits.com/showthread.php?t=40445

The discussion above is not of much use to the OP with the virus.

 

Aww, and Mr nice moderator moved them all organized like! =) Sorry I was one of the guilty ones =)

 

Windows is designed to make money not to be a computer OS. It never was. Windows 7 is a bit better. All this nonsense began when Mr. Gates mother stole DOS from IBM the rest is history. Windows should be prohibited to be installed in any electronic devices. Even OSX is light years better.

Your history isn't, it is so far off it is ludicrous. I was in at the beginning, Mr. Gates bought his version for a song, and developed it. His mother had nothing to do with it. It wasn't alone though, there were lots of OS's at the time (Dr. DOS comes to mind). If the inventor of CPM (another dead standard) had been less caviler about selling his OS it could have been the standard (he couldn't find time to meet with IBM), but Mr. Gates made the meeting with IBM and they bought the rights to use his software (not the software itself), a mistake of epic proportions.

Before that M/S was making O/S for computers like the TRS80 and the C64, using BASIC as the O/S interface. Due to a missed obligation M/S lost control of the C64 version, a mistake MicroSoft has been very careful not to repeat. Given how the company Commodore went it didn't make much difference in the long run.

Another major mistake was made by Xerox, who invented the GUI interface that uses a mouse and a desktop but didn't bother to patent it (due to the "we make copiers only" mentality). This is why Apple lost their suite claiming Windows stole their O/S, because both of them had based their work on Xerox.

When DOS 3.0, or even DOS 6.2, was the current standard Microsoft was a relatively small company, and could have easily been absorbed by IBM (who was the 500 pound gorilla). If IBM had rigidly enforced their design rights as Apple had done the history of computers would have been a lot different, but I think they liked the idea of 3rd party parts vendors.

I find myself in strong disagreement that keeping updated copies, AV programs, and firewalls are going to stop viruses, and that it is always the users fault. This is a measures/countermeasures game, where people write very complex code and other people look for weaknesses to exploit for fun and profit. Both groups are incredibly smart, and it's not going away any time soon.

 

This dos not have nothing to do with the OP question but so much missinformation that needs to be corrected.
First forget about all the stupidity of the movies and false internet info and USE YOUR COMMON SENSE.
Bill Gates did not have a job and could not even post 200 dollars bail and ended in jail for a few hours until someone could lend him the money. Now how the <snip> was he going to buy DOS or even a bag of potato chips? Does not make any sense. Why you think the first version of DOS made by IBM a multimillion dollar corporation even in that time, did not copyrighted it? Do you know what Bill´s mother had to do to stop that from happening?.
How the <snip> can you sell something that was freeware?
Bill Gates did not buy anything, he did not program anything, Bill Gates is a crook at huge scale. You just can see now his junk products XBOX, Windows and what else.
Now we can even see how Germany and Japan make the best products in the world and are the best people to do business with because they were the good ones. I am sorry but that is what it is. I also do not belive in Santa Claus´ songs and the like.

 

The problem here is that many people belive just one source of information and unfortunately people lie ALL THE TIME is just normal to do nowdays, everyone belive what pleases him instead of use reasoning like collecting data from different sources and making YOUROWN conclussions. The important thing about this topic is that Windows really sucks, Xbox is badly designed. I think we all know that, so what can we do?, stop using it propagate the truth and stop the suffering.

 

unfortunately people lie ALL THE TIME is just normal to do nowdays

One problem with painting with such a broad brush is that we can't distinguish between liars and non-liars(if such persons can exist). Have you some means of distinguishing the one from the other?

 

Again, I was there, using computers as they were being developed, before M/S DOS was invented. Quote sources, it isn't hard to do, what part of the history I listed do you have problems with? I can back everything I said up, walking the walk as well as talking the talk.

You seem to be under the impression MicroSoft started with DOS. It was around long before, at least 3 years before (probably more), with other OSes developed early in the computing era.

I bought my first computer in 1977, a TRS80 with tiny BASIC, Z80 CPU, 4K RAM. I upgraded it to a more advanced BASIC and more RAM (a whole 16K!) when it came out, then a TRS80 Model III when it came out. I've owned a Commodore PET with the chicklette keyboard (1" keypads), then a C64, later a C128. I went to the C64 because the computer cost as much as a hires graphic upgrade on the TRS80.

All of these computers used OSes developed by MicroSoft. Much of the code was written by Bill Gates when it was a small company, and it was a successful going concern long before you seem to think it was. None of them used a hard drive, all except the PET and 1st generation TRS80 used floppy drives (the early computers used audio cassettes). The early XT fit right in with these others. It even came with BASIC, though the language had finally been sidelined off DOS as an accessory.

There are quite a few computers I used I've left out, including the various home brewed units I built with my brothers help starting with XT, 286, 386SX...

Like I've said, I've been involved with home computer almost from day one. I would have started with the 8086, but as a teen I couldn't afford it, but I was studying digital electronics. I have a very firm grasp how things went historically, and like I said, your history isn't even close. Some reading is in order if you want to really know the facts.

All of this sounds like I'm a fan of M/$, I'm not really, but give the devil his due. Most of the innovations we take for granted were co-invented by M/S. Microsoft has been predatory to a fault, when they got big enough they bought whole companies and closed them down to eliminate the competition. They have been caught stealing other peoples code and merging it with theirs. This was the reason DOS 6.0 was modified, DOS 6.2 had to remove disk compression software called Stacker.

Microsoft wrote Windows 3.11 when they saw how successful it was for the Macintosh. Apple sued, but lost because the real inventor, Xerox, hadn't bothered to pursue ownership. If Xerox had patented their work and enforced it history would have been a lot different, but the odds are both Window's and Mac OS would have still existed, Xerox would be a rich company instead of hanging on though. Both MicroSoft and Apple (along with Linux) swap idea's regularly, there is some symbiosis as well as competition going on here.

Viruses exist as a major problem because a lot of people (notably organized crime) has figured how to make big bucks out of it. Early viruses were pranks and vandalism, I don't think it was called a virus, but the 5 O'clock Quiting Time software was a popular prank. The computers of that era were all text, no graphics, and at 5:00PM all the letters would start dropping to the bottom of the screen. Press the space bar and it returned to the former state. Then the malicious stuff started coming out, things to completely wipe the hard drive or destroy the motherboard BIOS if they could. Just before the Panama invasion a company was sending a CD to doctors that supposedly had the latest AIDs information. Doctors who installed it found their entire HD drive encrypted with a notice where to send $500 for a recovery disk. Nowdays the stuff is all stealthy, because they don't want you to know you have a virus. They are using it to make money, lots of it.

 

One problem with painting with such a broad brush is that we can't distinguish between liars and non-liars(if such persons can exist). Have you some means of distinguishing the one from the other?

Yes I do as they do in court. First a lie most of the time works in the beginning but the truth always comes out. You can even try to lie to the whole world, it comes to mind Sadam Hussein`s chemical and biological labs that never existed but some pictures of rectangular shapes taken from the stratosphere.
As in legal terms the reputation of the witness has a lot to do a person that has lied before is more likely to lie again. People lie for many reasons usually they lie to obtain some kind of reward or approval, some lie simply to make more money. Some go to the extent to make long elavorated stories, comes to mind the death of babys on the hospital floor that was made to have an excuse to go to the Iraq first war.
After some people makes such elaborated stories you may ask yourself can I really believe ANYTHING comming from these people?

 

As much as I am not a fan of Microsoft, and in all honesty, people will write viruses for what most people use; Windows. There aren't enough Linux users for it to be worth while writing for it, same for Mac OSX. When most people use Linux, it will be worse, the source code is out there...

 

Again, I was there, using computers as they were being developed, before M/S DOS was invented. Quote sources, it isn't hard to do, what part of the history I listed do you have problems with? I can back everything I said up, walking the walk as well as talking the talk.

You seem to be under the impression MicroSoft started with DOS. It was around long before, at least 3 years before (probably more), with other OSes developed early in the computing era.

I bought my first computer in 1977, a TRS80 with tiny BASIC, Z80 CPU, 4K RAM. I upgraded it to a more advanced BASIC and more RAM (a whole 16K!) when it came out, then a TRS80 Model III when it came out. I've owned a Commdore PET with the chicklette keyboard (1" keypads), then a C64, later a C128. I went to the C64 because the computer cost as much as a hires graphic upgrade on the TRS80.

All of these computers used OSes developed by MicroSoft. Much of the code was written by Bill Gates when it was a small company, and it was a successful going concern long before you seem to think it was. None of them used a hard drive, all except the PET and 1st generation TRS80 used floppy drives (the early computers used audio cassettes). The early XT fit right in with these others. It even came with BASIC, though the language had finally been sidelined off DOS as an accessory.

There are quite a few computers I used I've left out, including the various home brewed units I built with my brothers help starting with XT, 286, 386SX...

Like I've said, I've been involved with home computer almost from day one. I would have started with the 8086, but as a teen I couldn't afford it, but I was studying digital electronics. I have a very firm grasp how things went historically, and like I said, your history isn't even close. Some reading is in order if you want to really know the facts.

All of this sounds like I'm a fan of M/$, I'm not really, but give the devil his due. Most of the innovations we take for granted were co-invented by M/S. Microsoft has been predatory to a fault, when they got big enough they bought whole companies and closed them down to eliminate the competition. They have been caught stealing other peoples code and merging it with theirs. This was the reason DOS 6.0 was modified, DOS 6.2 had to remove disk compression software called Stacker.

Microsoft wrote Windows 3.11 when they saw how successful it was for the Macintosh. Apple sued, but lost because the real inventor, Xerox, hadn't bothered to pursue ownership. If Xerox had patented their work and enforced it history would have been a lot different, but the odds are both Window's and Mac OS would have still existed, Xerox would be a rich company instead of hanging on though. Both MicroSoft and Apple (along with Linux) swap idea's regularly, there is some symbiosis as well as competition going on here.

I began using IBM DOS 3.1 and so MS-DOS they were the same. Who wrote the code? a then poor guy or a multimillion dollar corporation? I go for the latter. You go for the song story good for you it does sounds impressive though.

 

As much as I am not a fan of Microsoft, and in all honesty, people will write viruses for what most people use; Windows. There aren't enough Linux users for it to be worth while writing for it, same for Mac OSX. When most people use Linux, it will be worse, the source code is out there...

No that is not the reason. Go investigate why Linux is made with security as the mos important aspect. Windows is made for virus and spyware in purpose man or you tell me the guy who took Linux from Unix is more prepared than the people at Microsoft, hahahahaha.

 

Facts are easy to prove, opinions not so much. Bias can not be corrected, if one's mind is made up with fallacious facts and a refusal to look at history by people who lived it.

I tend go with the Fox's post, Linux has a advantage. It has breathing room to find the bugs, and it doesn't feel the need to rewrite the world to sell new code. If it ever does take off, it will be attacked, occasionally successfully.