Dealing with viruses!

[tu_m.aimes]

Hi, I have to conduct a focus group discussion for class and I was hoping you all could help me out =D. My topic is "user awareness of Internet-borne computer viruses and how they are dealt with." Basically, how this works is I'm supposed to start off with a question, and then ask more questions based on the responses I get, so I'll ideally be checking back here every couple of hours to see how things are going =D

I'd really really appreciate any help you guys can offer, especially since I'm not entirely sure how to lead to the 2nd part of my topic yet, ahahaha. Your replies would be most welcome. Thank you so much in advance!!! =D

Hmm, how about I start off with... Do you use any anti-virus software (one or more; feel free to specify)? Do you find it to be effective in protecting your system from the countless viruses spreading via Internet? Has anything ever managed to slip through? =D

[John A]

>Do you use any anti-virus software
Nope.

>Do you find it to be effective in protecting your system from the countless viruses
>spreading via Internet?
I primarily use Unix or Unix-like operating systems, which don't seem to be especially vulnerable to viruses.

>Has anything ever managed to slip through?
Nope.

[hughv]

In my experience most AV programs do their job well. Most of the infections I see come from users too ignorant or lazy to keep their software up to date. This happens even after repeated warnings from the program itself ("Your AV is out of date/expired", etc.)
Spyware is an even bigger problem.
I suspect most users handle this problem well, and most are well aware of the potential for problems, but you just can't help some people.
Our "Vampirical Moderator" has a point, but the conventional wisdom is that Unix/Linux have vulnerabilities, but aren't worth targeting because of the very small user base.

[jbennet]

I use firewalls, antivirus and antispyware software

Have never had an issue. I am just careful about what i do and never run with more premissions that i need.

Our "Vampirical Moderator" has a point, but the conventional wisdom is that Unix/Linux have vulnerabilities, but aren't worth targeting because of the very small user base.

UNIX like systems and NT based systems are inherently almost as secure as eachother. The only reason NT gets a lot more viruses is because its users are idiots. They run as admin users all the time, and even with UAC, dont bother reading the prompts, and click things / give out thier password without thinking about it.

You would get precicely the same security risks on a UNIX-like system if the users ran as root all of the time. In fact, virtually all viruses for UNIX-like systems exploit the root user doing something stupid.

[hughv]

"The only reason NT gets a lot more viruses is because its users are idiots."
I don't think this is quite right.
Windows is the system that most people use, and most people aren't as savvy as Unix users tend to be.
MS has failed to educate the user or secure the system (UAC is a huge failure because it's so intrusive).
I'm not an expert, but I prefer the Linux prompt that asks me, once, to run as root when I want to make a significant change.

[mjdodd]

recently computeractive mag gave an interesting item on creating a anvi virus boot linux cd and by updating a key and then using the boot cd (not HD normal boot) and searching using the key updates it finds all viral activity and renames the file seems a good idea and I've used it and it works.... perhaps a totally new approach?

[jbennet]

its not a new idea

bartpe allows you to create a windows livecd with recovery and antivirus tools

[elvenchild]

Hmm, how about I start off with... Do you use any anti-virus software (one or more; feel free to specify)? Do you find it to be effective in protecting your system from the countless viruses spreading via Internet? Has anything ever managed to slip through? =D

i use nod32. it works pretty well. i rarely scan a computer, but when i do it never reports a thing. however it warns me when i visit some website that tries to install stuff secretly to my pc, that's a good feature. nod 32 doesn't deal with fake security tools, but hey, that's job for anti-spyware, so you can't blame antivirus for not having this thing.