Posted 31 March 2009 - 01:52 PM
Hello apexwebmaster, you and I think alike. I salute you sir. Please don't get me wrong, I am not anti-Linux or anti-anything. I am merely pointing out that a false sense of security is at the root cause of um, trouble, unanticipated troubles, let's say. I'd also like to point out that the Google search algorithms are a gem, pure genius! Not at all the simple linear search, matching by character or string, but with a lot more heuristics, refinements and precise acumen included. Thus as an example, if we search:
Results 1 - 10 of about 419,000,000 for linux [definition]. (0.23 seconds)
versus
Results 1 - 10 of about 2,440,000 for linux vulnerabilities. (0.27 seconds)
Google understands the meaning of what we're looking for.
So the general discussions going on about open-source Linux issues are not at all the same if we include the term 'vulnerabilities' along with it...
Similarly:
Results 1 - 10 of about 157,000,000 for windows [definition]. (0.22 seconds)
versus
Results 1 - 10 of about 326,000 for windows vulnerabilities. (0.18 seconds)
are specific, and somewhat representative, at least in perspective to what we're looking for.
Now that doesn't mean necessarily one is more vulnerable than the other. But did you know that serious studies have proven that 93% of all of Windows vulnerabilities can be mitigated by the simple use of the Least User Access principle? It would be unthinkable for reasonable Unix users to use a root super-user id to visit hostile and unknown environments such as the Internet. Thus the principle of a regular ID, substituted to root id, via the 'su' or 'sudo' modifier, to perform admin functions on a selective and focused basis. The exact same can be performed in Windows via the use of 'run as'. Alas I wish everybody kept the same standards, instead of this nonsense / delimiter for Unix, versus for Windows. That is ridiculous, I'm not sure on whose part? On this triviality, I will say Windows is at fault since it came afterwards of the Unix convention. Also unknown to many neophytes, is the fact Windows is actually a superset of Unix, having built-in subsystems to support both a Unix and OS/2 layers, in addition to the native Windows framework. Yes one can add the SFU Services for Unix, optionally to Windows, or simply use cygwin to perform most if not all POSIX functions directly from within Windows. But I digress.
I would also suggest that on the Internet-at-large, like in a public discussion forums, people will be talking about vulnerabilities, that have nothing to do with closed info such as the Microsoft Intranet for instance. Due to the 89% market share penetration of Windows, it would stand to reason to expect there would be a lot more vulnerabilities discussed for that platform from external users to Microsoft, from a simple statistical perspective?
As for the auto-play or removable disk vector, Windows is still vulnerable, even if patched with the critical security update MS08-067, if an administrator falls for the social engineering trick, to browse a mysterious folder, which is in fact the Conficker worm executable disguised as a folder:
!http://blogs.technet.com/photos/mmpcblog/images/3190621/original.aspx!
Note under the Install or run program the folder icon? Publisher not specified? That is in fact the Conficker executable waiting for an admin to deliver its payload... But Windows won't auto-run the executable, merely provide a popup that shows you something new is seen by the system. The responsibility to click judiciously, still rests on the user.
The solution is trivial: Unless the user is administrator, this executable will fail. Also if any decent AV solution was in effect at the time, it would halt and destroy the virus on the spot! Thirdly, any diligent user, would have noticed the subterfuge through awareness, and not that sense of invulnerability, false sense of security...
Thus my warning about "Watch your step"...
And I re-iterate my belief that 99.99% of all computer problems root causes can be credited to whatever sits between the chair and keyboard.
MS08-067 only prevents the mechanism by which the worm propagates without any interaction from a user, silently across the entire network by using known vulnerabilities in the OS.
Now a large percentage of Windows users are using administrator due to ill-behaved sub-standard applications in which the software designers did not fully understand the fine granularity of security ACLs available to them, basically were too lazy to follow the API, and simply wrote their software with all rights, just like root under Unix, so they didn't have to deal with the intricacies of hierarchical security concepts. It isn't Windows fault. But these legacy crappy programs and applications force the majority of Windows users to remain in admin mode. Credit where credit is due. It is due to lame and lazy third party programmers, that forces end-users to be super-users. Or else, their purchased programs won't run. Thus the critical importance to only purchase or use free software that has the Certified for Windows Vista qualification label. Not too many programs do that. Not even Adobe, or Firefox bother, instead covering up their inane aptitudes, by deflecting the blame onto Microsoft under guise of a money grab... But I digress. As evidenced by the late vulnerabilities affecting all OS, Windows, Linux and OS X, were caused by vulnerabilities in Firefox and Adobe precisely! Nuf said for now on that topic.
But the solution is simple to the end-users, that want peace of mind. Simply use Windows Certified programs and applications, and nothing else. Easier said than done however, hence explaining the state of affairs, everybody pointing the finger at each other, and spewing FUD all over to cover their asses.
If anyone gets infected by the Conficker worm, it's not anybody's fault but theirs. Alas, not too many people are mature and honorable enough to admit that. Hey that's human nature.
Nice chatting with you my friend. I wish you the best, and am sure we will have many further interesting conversations, as members of the PCWorld Community.
We're all here to learn from each other, and teach each other. Thus mutually expanding our collective horizons.
Cheers!
~~~~~~~~~~
There are exactly 10 kinds of people. Those who understand binary and those who don't. ;)
Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened.
~ Winston Churchill
Men trip not on mountains they trip on molehills.
{Chinese Proverb} (And then blame the mole for their own incompetence.)
It isn't the mountains ahead to climb that wear you out; it's the pebble in your shoe.
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Computers don't do what you want them to do; They do what you tell them to do.
{Programmer's Axiom}
Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.
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There seems to be some perverse human characteristic that likes to make easy things difficult.
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A genius is someone who can accomplish in one step what anybody can in twenty.
~ A wintarded observation of a pattern of truth.
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