Those Darn Pesky German Teenagers

[AKIron]

Broadband ISPs should require and provide a firewall with every dsl or cable modem. They are so cheap there is no excuse not to.

[Stoned Gecko]

What usually leads to this is a combination of things.

• Poor OS choice on the part of the user. MS holds a monopoly on the OS, but it is still up to a user to select which OS to use. There are other OSs out there (Linux, BSD, Solaris, etc). They may require more knowledge and time to administer and may cost more, but that's the trade off. The ultimate choice is still consumers'.
• Patches not being applied on time. And this can be for various reasons. The top one is ignorance ... most people have no idea how to do it and don't bother to learn. Second is chance of destabilizing the system that currently works.
• Either not running or misconfiguring the firewall and antivirus. The software is there and a combination of FW and AV can lock down a system pretty tight. And I don't mean using MS poor excuse for a firewall. Again, lack of knowledge.

What MS should do is offer some money to those that discover vulnerabilities and let MS know. May be that would get some of the creative thinkers out there to let MS know about a vulnerability instead of writing a virus, a trojan, or a worm.

[GRUNHERZ]

Well beter that miscief than that of an earlier generation...

[Gunslinger]

Originally posted by capt. apathy

btw- IIRC, the fix was issued before this attack, and I believe it only hit machines that weren't updated.  that being the case the user is much more responsible for the problem than MS, with the punk who wrote the virus being much more responsible than either.

I read an article a while back about hackers getting lazy.  They wait till security patches and such get released....take a look at them....create somthing nasty...than goin after people that havnt patched their systems.

[straffo]

Originally posted by Gunslinger
I read an article a while back about hackers getting lazy.  They wait till security patches and such get released....take a look at them....create somthing nasty...than goin after people that havnt patched their systems.

So true...

capt. apathy , I'm pissed by both but more by microsoft which left blatant security holes in their OS in the part they should test strongly because it's one of the more the important part !

actually if you really consider it the amount of time and effort that MS puts into securing you from vandals and thieves, and their speed at responding when a vulnerability is found is pretty damn impressive. continuing to find and fix issues on your product long after it's bought.

If you find microsoft is fast at answering at security concern it's IMO because you don't have worked with other OSes like AIX ,OSF,Solaris etc ... otherwise you will find microsoft quite slow !

Plus in the case of that others OSes you generaly got patches before it's to late !

[capt. apathy]

Originally posted by straffo

Plus in the case of that others OSes you generally got patches before it's to late !

I don't know much about other operating systems so you may be right on that part.  but in every story or announcement on this latest virus it says the patch has been out for awhile.  so they did in-fact have it out before it was too late.  they even took steps to make this patching process fool-proof by equipping the OS with an auto-update, that alerts you when a new patch is necessary.

a lot of people, myself included, dis-able this.  but I don't have a lot of sympathy for people who dis-able an auto feature to gain a bit more resources, but then blow off keeping track of the updates on their own.

kinda like blaming ford if your engine gives up after you blew off changing the oil for the last 80k miles.

I'm not saying these people deserved to have their systems attacked, they didn't.  but if they feel the need to start handing out blame to anyone other than the actual offender here, they should be sure to serve themselves up a nice big slice before they hand out anymore.

[straffo]

Well I admit I'm biased and sensitive on this subject because I've to do an "upgrade" of a production machine just to please some technical impaired manager who think that Windows help increase performance and reliability.

so far he is wrong , and their won't be any benefit after the upgrade
In fact it will be exactlty the opposite !

[Gh0stFT]

hey Gunslinger, "Those Darn Pesky German Teenagers " because
of just one 18 year old genius, blame all ? lol

*shaking head*

[Fishu]

Originally posted by capt. apathy
btw- IIRC, the fix was issued before this attack, and I believe it only hit machines that weren't updated.  that being the case the user is much more responsible for the problem than MS, with the punk who wrote the virus being much more responsible than either.

Yup.. just like with RPC whatever virus.
I've dodged all of these by checking windows update service AT LEAST once a month.
If there are no updates, it'll only takes about a minute of my precious time.
If updates exists, then I can just as well download & install those while I work on something else.
Whole process perhaps takes whopping 10 minutes of working time every month and lots of disasters are avoided.

Amazes me how big companies/institutions, even those which are in very responsible position in the community, do not check for updates even over time of several months! (when the RPC virus first time appeared, an update had been available for several months and still many important computers were infected)


..and you can also have automatical updates!
So really.. good part of the responsibility should be also on the users of infected computers in this kind of cases.

[Nilsen]

i have never had a virus or worm and im suprised that someone actually can get one. you have to be pretty lax or stupid to get one if you just do a minimum of maintnance of your av and win + dont open things you get in mails.

there really is no need for av software either if you just use your head.

[Gunslinger]

Originally posted by Gh0stFT
hey Gunslinger, "Those Darn Pesky German Teenagers " because
of just one 18 year old genius, blame all ? lol

*shaking head*

Sorry if you are a German teenager.....the posts title was in fact an attempt at sarcasm

[gofaster]

Cyberterrorism.

[frank3]

No more worries, the sasser virus creator has been...captured, as you might have heard, it was a German guy.

has anyone noticed Solas hasn't posted in a while?

[Fishu]

Originally posted by gofaster
Cyberterrorism.

Except it isnt politically motivated and hardly made to create terror...

[AKIron]

Originally posted by Nilsen
i have never had a virus or worm and im suprised that someone actually can get one. you have to be pretty lax or stupid to get one if you just do a minimum of maintnance of your av and win + dont open things you get in mails.

there really is no need for av software either if you just use your head.

If you live in the US, have a broadband connection, and don't have a firewall (either software or hardware), your chances of getting a worm are VERY high. Patches from MS are after the fact. Everyone with a broadband connection should have a hardware firewall, they cost as little as $20, are easy to set up, and can save you a world of grief.