Windows Security rant

[svarreby]

I have just had it with Windows and it's wide-open highways right inside the core of the OS.

During this weekend I got an email from my the guys who's providing me with free POP3 and web-access email account. It turned out that there was heavy SPAM-traffic from my account ...

My first thought was -"No way, not from me". I D/L 2 of the best (according to extensive tests) anti-trojan suites for Windows. The first one didn't come up with anything at all ... it said my system was clean (...and yes, I did update it before I performed the scan :)

The other tool (TDS-3) found 2 files.

Now I've got 6 tools (programs) that autostarts with the OS that is security-related:

1 firewall
2 for the registry
1 antivirus software
2 anti-trojan suites

In addition to these there's a couple more:

1 for cleaning my HD-space
1 for pop-ups

There's no way of get rid of Windows for good at my home LAN. If I want to have something to eat, I'll just have keep struggling with Windows
on some of my machines (:

This morning I was browsing the web, and as always, there's penetration to the inner core of Windows. Listen to this:

Countless changes to the registry ... and that is happening when I have 2 specialized tools working only with the task of keeping everything un-changed ...

The startpage in IE changes in a snap. Even in this case I have set up one tool so that NO ONE could change my IE-setting ...

The trojans that did appear ... well they kind of created some folders and they was able to set permissions to these folders so that only the ADMIN could delete them (and the files).

Not only could any file get access to these areas, there's no problem in setting the spyware/trojans so that they function as a service either ...

Now I'm f!"#¤¤ing tired of this. Now I am going to create a "shield" around these Windows machines ... I'll ask for some help in my next thread ... :) :)

[Ug]

Oh the joys of Windows, now you can see why we all converted.

Sadly however i'm moving this to General Discussion as its not entirely Fedora Related.

[svarreby]

... I forgot the SPAM situation :)

I haven't even mentioned that one ... add another tool for this ... there's 7 now :)

[Ug]

I know that hotmail account addresses are used by SPAMMERS to send virus stuff. I got an email back the other day, saying i sent an email to someone and that it wasn't delivered because it had a virus. I'd not sent any such email.

[mindstorm]

Originally posted by Ug
I know that hotmail account addresses are used by SPAMMERS to send virus stuff. I got an email back the other day, saying i sent an email to someone and that it wasn't delivered because it had a virus. I'd not sent any such email. I got one of those too, very odd.

[Ug]

And very devious.

[et109]

The "Novarg" or "Mydoom" worm propagates itself that way.
Sends itself to you as a "bounced" e-mail with an attachment.

[Ug]

I got another email sent back to me today. It appears that it attaches a file called my_pic.pif but its got another extension on it as well.

I just deleted the mail. Its really annoying that they're using my address in this way though.

[et109]

Someone who has you in their address book or contact list clicked on the attachment when they got it. You might want to check this link out.

http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/w32.novarg.a@mm.html

[Ug]

Interesting, just the problem is - it could one of many many computer illiterate people I know.

[et109]

That's how they spread, lol.
That thing installs a backdoor then sends itself to everyone in the victims addressbook. The
"returned Mail" format is only one of 8 formats that it uses.

[Ug]

Damn computer illiterate types.

[et109]

I prefer to vent upon the "computer literate" types who write and use these damned things. No telling what they are doing to ppl's lives, stealing identities and all the other bs they do.

[Ug]

Yea, but I do find that people are too gullible. And should use some degree of common sense in these matters.

[mhelios]

Damn computer illiterate types.

Sorry master, I shall leetin my skills immedialtely. :D

Seriously though, arounf the peak of the MyDoom spread, I was getting bounced messages daily, sometimes more! How can anyone by "smart" enough to click an .exe attachment....<sigh>

[Ug]

Especially after all the press such emails got.

[et109]

good ole windows has the option of hiding file extensions, which is the default action in explorer.That probably contributes to some of of it. ( this is a windoze rant I believe, lol)

[Ug]

All in the name of so called "ease of use".

[Avatraxiom]

Originally posted by et109
Someone who has you in their address book or contact list clicked on the attachment when they got it. You might want to check this link out.

It's actually even better than that. The virus scans every text file on your computer, and greps them for email addresses. :-)

Thankfully, I've been completely immune to all of this since my company makes a mail server that has integrated anti-virus, and all sorts of anti-spam controls. The messages never even get to me. :-)

It won't be long before almost everybody has integrated AV in their mail servers, and then this will be much less of a problem.

-M

[Jman]

Originally posted by et109
good ole windows has the option of hiding file extensions, which is the default action in explorer.That probably contributes to some of it.
More than that, Windows relies on the file name to determine what kind of application to open a file with. The file name! So something named Pop_Artist_of_The_Week-Mindless_Song.mp3.exe appears to have the harmless extension mp3. Of course it's a virus. Argh! Fortunately, I know these things and scan for viruses.

Of course I also turn on the extensions to see what the heck the file is. :)

[Ug]

Originally posted by Jman
More than that, Windows relies on the file name to determine what kind of application to open a file with. The file name! Incredibly dumb.

[crackers]

Originally posted by mhelios
How can anyone by "smart" enough to click an .exe attachment....<sigh>

Because "most people" don't know of the ahem option to "view all file extensions" and would probably be freaked out by what they see anyway...

[mhelios]

Originally posted by crackers
Because "most people" don't know of the ahem option to "view all file extensions" and would probably be freaked out by what they see anyway... Good point. I suppose it's not the "most users" fault that Windows abstracts away all the details with common computing interfaces. More user education (or move to linux :D ) are the only solutions.

[Ug]

Originally posted by mhelios
More user education is the only solution. Which is something a lot of people are at loathe to have.

[et109]

Originally posted by Ug
Which is something a lot of people are at loathe to have.
The most basic lessons that people need to learn are, IMHO,
1. What someone can do with a computer, somebody else can undo with another computer.
2.When lots of computers are hooked together, there is just about always someone out there looking to undo something on somebody elses computer.
Maybe then they will be willing to look for the things they need to learn to prevent #2 i.e. find out about file extensions.

[Ug]

Yea but I know a lot of everyday people, who don't want to know any more than how to send an email and turn a computer on. And as far as they're concerned thats it, they prefer the ignorance of it, because they consider computers either too technical, boring or both.

[Prometheus]

One of my best friends is decently good with computers and he gets more viruses and trojans and crap than anyone i know. Sure, he can be a real moron sometimes, but he has had more viruses in the last few months than ive had in my life. I finally got so pissed at getting spam, i just uninstalled Outlook (biggest damn source of viruses right there cause it downloads EVERYTHING) and got like 3 hotmail accounts and a couple yahoo. Have 1 yahoo for my friends and ppl i know and trust, a hotmail for newsletters and for stuff like i post here, and a couple that never even use but somehow still manage to get spam in ... figure that crap out. I dunno, maybe cause i have tweaked the living crap out of my XP pro system, but i dont seem to have problems with viruses and such, maybe its cause im paranoid too. I think i out do just about everyone on the security software, norton system works, pccillin antivirus, 4 more smaller antiviruses, ahh 3 spyware things, hardware and 2 software firewalls (damn invisible to everyone now) couple trojan hackers, and i had sub 7 for a while just so i could figure out how it worked and how to stop it. Nifty little program by the way. Oh yea, i forgot system works from norton, thats got a reg thing (along with 2 others i have) hdd checker, disc error checker, removes cookies and on and on and on.

Basically, im freakin paranoid. It solves so many problems, that and not using outlook. just my 2 cents.

basically, if anyone offers free antivirus or protection, ive prolly got a version ofit somewhere. Only thing i dont have is a bootable antivirus disc. Anyone know where i can get one of those by teh way? (its great being paranoid isnt it?)

[mhelios]

I think i out do just about everyone on the security software, norton system works, pccillin antivirus, 4 more smaller antiviruses, ahh 3 spyware things, hardware and 2 software firewalls (damn invisible to everyone now) couple trojan hackers, and i had sub 7 for a while just so i could figure out how it worked and how to stop it. Nifty little program by the way. Oh yea, i forgot system works from norton, thats got a reg thing (along with 2 others i have) hdd checker, disc error checker, removes cookies and on and on and on.

Isn't it amazing how switching to Linux basically makes need for all this software redundant... What would companies in these lines of business do in a MS free world? (rhetorical question..could this ever happen??)

[Jman]

Originally posted by mhelios
What would companies in these lines of business do in a MS free world?
What they do in a Windows dominated world. If it's popular, virus and exploits will be written. GNU/Linux holes might not be as large, but they still exist. And there are still clueless users who run stuff as root.

Originally posted by Prometheus
a bootable antivirus disc
I believe Norton can boot from CD. Pop yours in and see.

[mhelios]

What they do in a Windows dominated world. If it's popular, virus and exploits will be written. GNU/Linux holes might not be as large, but they still exist. And there are still clueless users who run stuff as root.

Ah yes, but the majority of this software, I'm mainly talking about anti-virus software, is specifically designed for Windows. It's the OS-type they're targetting, which of course the most abundant being Windows.

Of course if MS were eradicated, these comapanies would evolve and spawn new products aimed at the next most abundant platform whatever that may be. Or else they don't survive.

That is not to say there's not plenty of security software for Linux; it's just a whole different breed that isn't as lucrative as the need for Windows products.

[Prometheus]

To write a windows virus you dont really need a whole lot of intelligence to write a pretty "stupid" virus. In linux you at least need to haev a pretty good working knowledge of the system. My opinion. As for the bootable antivirus, i was hoping to find some kind of knoppix like thing that had a mini linux kernel or something that you could update with the latest definitions and such. Maybe there is no such thing, but it seems like somebody would have thought about it.

[Jman]

From the pretty comprehensive Linux Live CD list at frozentech.com (http://www.frozentech.com/content/livecd.php) comes a list of security-oriented Live CDs (http://www.frozentech.com/content/livecd.php?sort=&showonly=security). One with a comprehensive set of tools, including anti-virus, is Knoppix Security Tools Distribution (http://www.knoppix-std.org/). Haven't tried it, but according to the web site it has scanners and firewalls galore. Have fun. :)