Deleted my Anti-Virus

[Vulcan]

Mmkay. 20 000 weekly new attacks against windows and 1 DIY botnetter for mac in the last 20 years. Clearly I should start to panic now.

My house: NAT router, no av and no troubles. I no longer live at my parents so I have no control over their habits though

It's the first DIY botnet, there are several private mac botnets

However - which do you trust, the system with a few attacks and no protection, or the system with many attacks and lots of protection?

[MrRiplEy[H]]

It's the first DIY botnet, there are several private mac botnets

However - which do you trust, the system with a few attacks and no protection, or the system with many attacks and lots of protection?

Security by obscurity works well. Mac has antiviruses available (I've scanned a couple times manually with clamxav and linux boot disc) and osx has a built in malware remover that has the few known exploits under check.

I have a better chance to win in lottery than end up to a website that has an attack that can bypass noscript and is targeted specially against Apple. I don't use illegal software which gives me a huge layer of protection.

Then again windows attacks and exploits are plentiful and daily. Even the best protections always lag behind, someone first has to discover the attack in order to create a 'protection' against it. And as we've seen so many times, having protection most of the times means nothing. The malware goes around it in a heartbeat anyway.

[Skuzzy]

And yet I have been using the Internet since the DARPANet days and have never had to deal with a virus, malware, or spyware.  I have never used any type of anti-xxx software as well.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

And yet I have been using the Internet since the DARPANet days and have never had to deal with a virus, malware, or spyware.  I have never used any type of anti-xxx software as well.

Yes but your approach is very spartan indeed. Most people who have problems go about downloading and clicking whatever crosses their way and using default security settings. And without a doubt this is by a large part because of false sense of security created by AVs.

[Skuzzy]

Not so sure if "spartan" is what I would call it.  In the last 6 months I have installed about 1TB of data, all from the Internet.  If that defines "spartan", these days, then there are far too many people with far too much free time on their hands.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

Not so sure if "spartan" is what I would call it.  In the last 6 months I have installed about 1TB of data, all from the Internet.  If that defines "spartan", these days, then there are far too many people with far too much free time on their hands.

If I understood right you don't watch youtube, play flash games, do facebook in general? That's considered spartan these days Not to mention the down right risky stuff people do online.

[Masherbrum]

Never had to deal with a virus/spyware/malware to date.    Sorry, I guess all of that Facebookin' I do puts me at risk.         

[MrRiplEy[H]]

Never had to deal with a virus/spyware/malware to date.    Sorry, I guess all of that Facebookin' I do puts me at risk.        

Actually it does. Social networks are the hottest thing to target nowadays for malware makers. I think my parents got infected from a facebook worm that directed them to an external site and download which contained the payload.

The worm had extracted the friend information of some user, then sent image sharing notifications to all of the facebook friends and my mother naturally accepted the offer to view images even though the link was to a third party provider. Classic case of social engineering.

Funny thing was that I got the same exact offer to my hotmail account after she got infected too, despite having my FB account canceled long time ago. I immediately called my mother and verified if she actually sent an invitation to something and why. By then her computer was already rendered unusable by the fake av.

[Skuzzy]

If I understood right you don't watch youtube, play flash games, do facebook in general? That's considered spartan these days Not to mention the down right risky stuff people do online.

Different priorities do not define how the Internet is used or not used.  With over 20 years invested in programs/utilities and data, I prefer to not take the inherent risks associated with casual cruising of fluff sites (Youtube, Facebook,....).  It is a personal priority.

The general definition of "spartan" is to be simple, frugal, and/or austere.  What I do with my computer is anything but that, thus the desire to protect it from malicious software.  Would you leave a diamond ring in the middle of a busy mall, for anyone to pick up?

Your opinion is yours and yours alone as it does not reflect the reality of what I do with my computer.  Stating that opinion on a bulletin board does not make it any less of an opinion.  I'll not state my opinion of what I think of those who waste time with Facebook and/or Youtube.

[icepac]

I stopped using anti-virus from 1998 (year I got mcse) to 2008.

I got one virus and manually removed it.............but I did use a firewall.

The advent or root kits, though, determines that some sort of live scanner is needed when browsing.

Browsing habits determine infection events more than anything else.

Any time I've seen a pop up window concerning "virus check" or any fake ass'd virus message designed to spoof a anti virus software message, I immediately alt/f4 all open windows rather than try to click it closed.

If you think you've experienced an "event", best to alt/f4 any application you are running, check under hkeylocalmachine/software/microsoft/windows/current version/run for something you don't remember being there, check you 'start up" on the start menu, and go through the other places an executable can be run from msconfig or compmgmt.msc..........as well....check what processes are running.

I also use DLLshow to see hidden processes and google search them to see threat level.

Once that is done, run a malware/malicious software/virus scan.

This should all be done before a restart (if possible).

I currently run microsoft security essentials and have the firewall tightly controlled and a shortcut to the microsoft malicious software removal tool but I have them set up so as not running by default and only use them while browsing and not during gaming.

I also run all security scans right before I do any online bill paying or purchasing.

 

[ink]

Different priorities do not define how the Internet is used or not used.  With over 20 years invested in programs/utilities and data, I prefer to not take the inherent risks associated with casual cruising of fluff sites (Youtube, Facebook,....).  It is a personal priority.

The general definition of "spartan" is to be simple, frugal, and/or austere.  What I do with my computer is anything but that, thus the desire to protect it from malicious software.  Would you leave a diamond ring in the middle of a busy mall, for anyone to pick up?

Your opinion is yours and yours alone as it does not reflect the reality of what I do with my computer.  Stating that opinion on a bulletin board does not make it any less of an opinion.  I'll not state my opinion of what I think of those who waste time with Facebook and/or Youtube.

There are some damn funnyy vids on youtube.  Not a lot of viruses ether never got one from there.   

[Vulcan]

Browsing habits determine infection events more than anything else.

Probably the most misunderstood myths and incorrect statements relating to malware out there.

[Vulcan]

Security by obscurity works well. Mac has antiviruses available (I've scanned a couple times manually with clamxav and linux boot disc) and osx has a built in malware remover that has the few known exploits under check.

I have a better chance to win in lottery than end up to a website that has an attack that can bypass noscript and is targeted specially against Apple. I don't use illegal software which gives me a huge layer of protection.

Then again windows attacks and exploits are plentiful and daily. Even the best protections always lag behind, someone first has to discover the attack in order to create a 'protection' against it. And as we've seen so many times, having protection most of the times means nothing. The malware goes around it in a heartbeat anyway.

See that last paragraph, you always get hung up on it. Sorry to get personal but you really have no idea what you are talking about. Good AV does not require the vector to be known to protect against it. And malware doesn't go around it in a heartbeat. You really need to sit down and google behavioral protection with regards to AV and malware protection. To top things off you talk about using clamav (one of the worst purely signature based scanners ever known) with Mac OS X's built in protection that has no method for automatic updates and is purely signature based. Got a large dose of irony going on there.

Now here's the difference. There's a nice hole out for Skype for OS X - a hole you can drive a bus through - no fix apart from uninstalling Skype. Whereas on Windows with good AV (not the junk half you lot use) you have a second line of defense (McAfee for example would prevent the overflow, or any payload executing).

[icepac]

Probably the most misunderstood myths and incorrect statements relating to malware out there.

How is that incorrect?


Please prove your point and give percentages of infections to support it.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

See that last paragraph, you always get hung up on it. Sorry to get personal but you really have no idea what you are talking about. Good AV does not require the vector to be known to protect against it. And malware doesn't go around it in a heartbeat. You really need to sit down and google behavioral protection with regards to AV and malware protection. To top things off you talk about using clamav (one of the worst purely signature based scanners ever known) with Mac OS X's built in protection that has no method for automatic updates and is purely signature based. Got a large dose of irony going on there.

Now here's the difference. There's a nice hole out for Skype for OS X - a hole you can drive a bus through - no fix apart from uninstalling Skype. Whereas on Windows with good AV (not the junk half you lot use) you have a second line of defense (McAfee for example would prevent the overflow, or any payload executing).

You seem to forget that there are no more than a handful of attacks to worry about today, a fixed database of exploits is pretty effective in that situation. Your bus wide hole in Skype would require someone from my skype contacts to get infected before the flaw gets patched in Skype. I'm not losing sleep over it. Especially considering the flaw is already patched before any known exploits were spread on it - I'd like that to happen on windows some day.

Tell me, what is your magical av solution that is bullet proof as you claim? Eset is not good enough, Norton not good enough, Kaspersky not good enough - and yet they all bog down your computer more or less even before you got infected.

I've seen so many malware riddled computers with running avs that sorry I find your trust in them pretty baseless.

McAfee has a 96,8% detection rate in the 2011 tests of _known exploits_ http://www.av-comparatives.org/images/stories/test/ondret/avc_od_feb2011.pdf

If there are 2 million of known Windows viruses around today your box will be left open to about 64000 known attacks and unknown number of 0-day attacks.