Set it and forget it

[QuietIce]

I wholeheartedly agree with not blaming victims.

But, MS is not the victim, we are due to their neglegence. A better analogy is - do you blame the builder or the owner of a house with no lock on the side door? Sure the owner should have a lock installed. but shouldn't the builder have thought to secure the whole house?

MS software has issues from it's design not just because it is the target of criminals. An example of a better operating system is VMS. Closed design like MS (not open like linux). To date no one has cracked VMS. Why? It is coded better.

I am not a 'MS basher' just a realist telling you what the facts are. I do use MS products. I am glad that they are finally owning up to the virus malware issue with their OS and addressing it for free. It actuall makes them better in my eyes. Although, I'm not so sure my opinion is too popular.

It still comes back to criminals and the way they operate. To take your door example - suppose there are three types of locks in the world and each works a little differently so you have to specialize in which type lock you're going to try to pick. As a would-be thief do you specialize in Lock A, which constitutes %5 of all the locks; Lock B, which is 10% of the locks; or Lock C, which is 85% of the locks? You'd have to be a pretty dumb criminal to choose locks A or B when you could access 8-17 times more buildings by specializing in Lock C.

MS seems to be simple to break into but what it comes down to is, How well do the thieves know the system? If VMS had been around for 15 years, had to be backward compatible (to some extent), and was used by even 60% of the computers out there I'd bet it would be just as vulnerable as MS is because the thieves would have had plenty of time to learn all it's little secrets - open-source or not.

Not quite right. You're blaming the builder of the house when someone takes down the door with a crowbar. It is incredibly difficult to build a perfectly secure OS.

Exactly! No OS is secure - nor is any house, business, or bank. Like any other system of protection it's simply a matter of time and effort to break through.



Edit:
Cross-post. LOL!
[/threadjack]

 

[johan851]

guys.... remember the point of the thread here. Looking for good 'set and forget' security software so that the 'better idiot' can't break what i did to fix their crappily cared for systems.

Noted.

 

[Owenator]

guys.... remember the point of the thread here. Looking for good 'set and forget' security software so that the 'better idiot' can't break what i did to fix their crappily cared for systems.

Sorry, my bad.

MSE is working well on my 13 yr olds PC. That is a data point for you on a set and forget system. It hasn't been infected but it isn't on the web too much.

We'll see how it fares on my Wife's PC. Because she was able to get her PC hosed up right after my OneCare subscription expired. But that was her downloading a zip file with 'good' fonts right after OneCare stopped updating.

That is one thing that I may need better protection from. Purposeful downloading of software. I haven't tried yet with MSE yet but I'm sure it's coming. Which is why I keep image backups via Windows Home Server so I can always 'nuke it from orbit' roll back to before the incident and start again.

Just to clarify. VMS is over 30 years old. Yes, it is not used by a lot of people. Just banks and the Dept of Defense. And nobody ever tries to hack into them right? MS is like the side door being unlocked not easy to break into, unlocked. But other than that it's a great OS! I'm just a bitter VMS admin. Pay me no heed.

 

[splat]

anyone have a shootout that compares clamav to avg and avira? i can't recall ever seeing info on how effective clamav is

 

[TollhouseFrank]

I've used clamav in the past. It does not do realtime scans. It's a total 'scan on demand'... so no set and forget.

For an open source AV, the detection rate falls right in the middle of Avira (at the top) and say, AVG at the bottom. It's signatures are square in the middle of the pack.

It's Heuristics detections are insane though. It goes ballistic on that part of the scan. Seriously, when it detects various anti-hacking measures built into games/mmo's as Trojans? LOL.

Very very light on the resources. Probably the lightest AV i've ever used. Scans very fast as well.

So... for what it's worth... Middle of the road detection's list..... Top of hte line behavior based, no active protection (good as a 'rider' to your av like threatfire is), and very light on resources, and best of all, opensource!

 

[splat]

i was mainly thinking it would be used on a livecd to help rescue a system if it couldn't boot in to windows. good to hear that it is actually a pretty good scanner.

 

[Krogen]

I don't have any software suggestions, but a good way about implementing "set it and forget it" on any software would be to use cron.

Maybe a Unix guru can chime in who worked with this in Windows?

 

[c627627]

i was mainly thinking it would be used on a livecd to help rescue a system if it couldn't boot in to windows. good to hear that it is actually a pretty good scanner.

Its database is mediocre at best so what advantages does/would it have over freeware Avira which has (much) better definitions?

 

[TollhouseFrank]

Its database is mediocre at best so what advantages does/would it have over freeware Avira which has (much) better definitions?

Like i said in my earlier post, it doesn't have near as good of defintions as avira... but it has one of the best heuristics/behavior based engines i've used.

 

[Owenator]

I don't have any software suggestions, but a good way about implementing "set it and forget it" on any software would be to use cron.

Maybe a Unix guru can chime in who worked with this in Windows?

You could use the windows 'Scheduled Tasks' control panel item to the same effect as cron. That's how we do scheduled reboots at work. As a long time UNIX Sys Admin I do like cron too.

 

[johnz]

Like i said in my earlier post, it doesn't have near as good of defintions as avira... but it has one of the best heuristics/behavior based engines i've used.

I read in the past that they concentrate on newer threats, and not so much on the old stuff. If true, it's a reasonable choice when you have limited resources for keeping the product updated. I use it as part of the PortableApps suite on a thumb drive due to it's small size.

 

[Foolios]

What I would do is offer a service to your customers that would allow you to connect to their pc's each month and do the updates and cleanings for them.
You can perform maintenance on their pc's and prevent issues from getting worse for them.
When a customer would need some services done remotely, I would schedule a time when they would be available to invite me via msn messenger or outlook for remote assistance. They could then monitor my actions as I cared for their system.
This helped them to learn how to maintain their pc as well as helped me to make some quick, easy cash.
And of course, you can offer these services routinely or just when necessary...

I love remote features. If the users can't do it, do it for them and all the while, make it easier for you to do whilest making some money as well.

Cheer Cheer

 

[TollhouseFrank]

good idea foolios... except i live in a state and area where dial-up is still king. i'm not kidding. remoting in is just not worth the hassle and wait over dial-up.... especially in areas where the only alternative is no internet or dial-up.... and if you are one of the lucky few, you have a clear view of the southern sky (we live in mountains, ya know) and can get sattellite internet.

 

[johnz]

Maybe you're approaching this the wrong way. It might be better to write a short manual teaching people the basics of caring for their computer. Any security system can be breached, especially if the operator doesn't really know how it works. If you you teach them how to secure it themselves, they can be proactive about keeping their machines secure.

 

[TollhouseFrank]

johnz - if they are willing and ask, then i will show them. if they don't ask, it is like talking to a brick wall. lots of words and they just get bounced away and not absorbed.

If the customer prefers to remain ignorant and want to use the shop's services over and over, i won't stop them. However, there are always a few that are willing to learn, or in some cases, they do take good care of their machines, but kids/grandkids/nephews/neices wreak havoc with their system behind their backs (and i can always tell.... tempfiles and cache are wonderful things to go through to see what happened and how to prevent it in the future)

 

[splat]

yeah, most people don't want to learn, thats why they open their wallets to let you do it