Windows doomed by Virus?

[sneekula]

Ever since I got my Ubuntu notebook computer, I can't fail to notice how fast it starts up (and shuts down) compared to my Windows Vista notebook. Other than the system itself, the virus program seems to take more and more time as it checks for seemingly millions of possible virus attacks. More and more viruses are added each minute, and there will come a time when it takes hours to check them all. At that point Windows will have died, or at least its users will get too angry to use it.

That doesn't even count the many rather pesky and time consuming upgrades of Vista and the virus programs. Worst of those are the once that insist that the computer be rebooted! It takes my Vista machine close to five minutes to do so.

[MosaicFuneral]

What AV are you using?

Ubuntu doomed to glutton?

[Will Gresham]

If you have installed one of the bloated mafia style protection systems then you might find things a bit slow.

I use Vista as a dual boot with openSuse. Not a huge difference between the two. But then I do use a free protection system so the developers aren't sat there thinking of pointless 'features' that don't really do much other than look good and use resources that they can add so that you are more likely to buy it next year..

[scru]

What is anti-virus?

Call me naive but I run my Vista naked. I figure I can avoid 90% of infection problems by just not clicking links/opening suspicious programs/using certain MS software. It makes me chuckle to think about just how sorely wrong I could be; my system could be riddled with viruses/trojans for all I know.

Oh well, that's why I dual boot.

[Will Gresham]

I have to use Windows when programming.
Both .Net and NuSphere are on there :(

But for everything else, I run openSuse. Only security on there is what came as standard and I have never had any problems :D

[tigerbright]

it gets worse - current security does not seem to detect and block bad (malware) activeX very well.
you can evaluate yourself via running
RegistryPC utility > scan block bad activex > note list, note any trojans
http://www.registrypc.com/features.php

this utility appears to be to new to have been compromised by serious parasites - which is another depressing subject

[Infarction]

My Vista install takes absolutely forever to reboot. So I only reboot when I have critical system updates that are being enforced by IT (I'd run it naked as well, but IT again enforces restrictions on that). Seems to avoid the problem satisfactorily, if not ideal.

[tigerbright]

To infarction - seems like your IT dept may have installed security applications that load upon startup but are hidden
although VISTA is renowned for slow booting
To my surprise installing Windows 7 beta proved surprisingly quick with full booting to zero spu usage at less than 60 seconds with typical home owner security @2.8GHz cpu speed.
So maybe some improvements when your IT dept implements Windows 7

[Infarction]

yeah, I'd be running Win7 now, except there isn't upgrade support from the RC to the final version. Quite looking forward to the perf boost though.

[thoughtcoder]

Who gets viruses? You have to try hard to get viruses on Windows. Stop pirating software, then you won't get viruses.

[Ene Uran]

Who gets viruses? You have to try hard to get viruses on Windows. Stop pirating software, then you won't get viruses.

You try to tell the rest of us that it is a copy protection scheme? Be real. The internet is a good source of the ugly beasts.

Now the question is, who writes them and why?

[NicAx64]

Who gets viruses? You have to try hard to get viruses on Windows. Stop pirating software, then you won't get viruses.

I don't agree with you. Even if you stop pirating software , there is
still the possibility for get inflected. True if we use genuine software then we will get all the service packs and updates and patches . we
can keep it up to date. But even if you did so , it only reduces less than
10% of possibility of vlunurable to a newly created worm.

and the other hand todays virus writers are using the most dangours ways of their inflection and crypt engine in the viruses. Some viruses are spread through the covert channels that only few are successfully even identified. Computer virology has a larger
scope than the pirating software or not. However if we using some software there should be a pay of fair amount to the author who works hard to bring that software.

I don't know the current law about the daniweb about virus packs.
If it oky then I can post here a link to a virus pack which contains
viruses that newest virus scanner can't even identify.

and there are things like rabbits , which jumps continiously while the
targert is found. There is no easy method to even identify them.

[NicAx64]

You try to tell the rest of us that it is a copy protection scheme? Be real. The internet is a good source of the ugly beasts.

Now the question is, who writes them and why?

well human writes them , and they write them 98% for fun !
another 1% to show that they smart ( another type of physco ),
and another 1% for gain or profit.

I think discussing the virus source codes and virus writing is illeagal in
United States. However in my country it's oky. and Releasing a virus
is illeagal in 99% of countries include mine. so what about the daniweb ?

[scru]

But even if you did so , it only reduces less than 10% of possibility of vlunurable to a newly created worm.

Did you just pull that figure out of your butt, or do you have some data to back that up?

Regardless, in my naive opinion there are only a few high-risk scenarios for catching computer infections these days. Even if new worms are created, you still sorta have to go out there and catch them (in most cases). If you're really smart about computer use, you can avoid about 90% of infections out there.

Now I pulledthat one out of my butt.

[NicAx64]

Did you just pull that figure out of your butt, or do you have some data to back that up?

Regardless, in my naive opinion there are only a few high-risk scenarios for catching computer infections these days. Even if new worms are created, you still sorta have to go out there and catch them (in most cases). If you're really smart about computer use, you can avoid about 90% of infections out there.

Now I pulled that one out of my butt.

the actual thing is those only few high-risk secnarios are hideen , and
no one knows is there is a worm inside my computer. Then it's not you're computer anymore.

I think smart thing is not to depend on patches , because according to the software complexity it's not possible to create patches
that every 0day exists. some are hidden and even not published yet. I think a firewall do a great job in this, It's really a foolish thing
if you order firewall to go to the font , but it's our only choice.

No according to the current software complexity no one or no patch
can gurantee you are safe. that's why I tell you firewall did a great
job actaully than that. It's a foolish to say it , but truth is it really does.actually to protect you from the script kids and torjans firewall
is a great choice. But nothing is able to stop a smart attack.

[NicAx64]

and some smart worms use the covert channels to spread !
then you can't simply hit netstat or network monitoring utility
to trace it. these are the morden day viruses.

Too sad to tell, before 2000 , a virus actually takes 1 year of time
to spread one country to another. But today no one even have
data to estimate that time. No matter you are using original software you are most probablly inflected ! and that's not you're
computer that you thinking.

[NicAx64]

To learn more about the viriology I thinks reading this book will
helps you more.
http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0321304543.01._SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg

But those information is little bit outdated right now.

[Ene Uran]

My Vista install takes absolutely forever to reboot. So I only reboot when I have critical system updates that are being enforced by IT (I'd run it naked as well, but IT again enforces restrictions on that). Seems to avoid the problem satisfactorily, if not ideal.

I just timed a typical reboot on my Vista machine and it took 9 minutes (plus some change). Enough time to go to the Starbucks on the corner and return with a foamed latte.

[MosaicFuneral]

I just timed a typical reboot on my Vista machine and it took 9 minutes (plus some change). Enough time to go to the Starbucks on the corner and return with a foamed latte.

0.0 I think you broke it... I can load whole OSes from floppies, in a fraction of that time.

[GrimJack]

well human writes them , and they write them 98% for fun ! another 1% to show that they smart ( another type of physco ), and another 1% for gain or profit.

Where did you get your stats? I do believe that the 98% you are talking about are scritp-kiddies and do not write virii - they are more an annoyance. Of the people who actually write the mal-ware, it would be difficult to know how they break down wrt for profit vs for destruction
I think discussing the virus source codes and virus writing is illeagal in United States.discussing virus source codes is not illegal in the US - how the heck could anyone fight virii w/o talking about them? However in my country it's oky. and Releasing a virus
is illeagal in 99% of countries include mine. so what about the daniweb ?What about DaniWeb??
There are programs out there that will build you a virus; you fire it up and it asks questions and builds the virus/trojan to your specs. People who run them are sometimes known as 'script-kiddies' (from an earlier era when script-kiddies used someone else's program to hack passwords and such).

To the people who think that they can safely run bare-back through the internet - you are a member of the zombie army. Zombie recruiters scan IP addresses for open ports and for closed ports (if the recruiter finds a closed port, it knows there is a computer there and adds that address to a list to be checked again later). At the very least, you need Zone Alarm (or something like it); ZA ignores all port pings so the recruiter gets no response to its probe and assumes there is nothing at that address. Another feature is that ZA blocks all attempts outgoing messages also unless you specifically okey them. Go to GRC and run his 'shields up' program - this will give you a barebones idea of how vulnerable you are.

Besides virii and trojans which are passive (just for classification purposes) infecters - there are worms which are aggressive infecters.

If your computer is a zombie, at some point it will be activated and your pc will join a bot-net and participate in illegal activities like DDoS attacks, spamming, or some such.

Not being a security geek nor do I play one on tv but you might be interested in this bit of trivia - I guess I just can't imagine someone depending on MS for protection when many of their choices over the years have made life so easy for the mal-ware writers. and to be honest, I did not even test Vista's built in protection; I turned it off and use ZA, SpyBot Search and destroy, and SpywareBlaster.