Illusions of security

http://isc.sans.org/diary.php?rss&storyid=1052
Regards - Charles

 

Interesting, Charles.

I have to tell you, though... it all does get a bit tiresome. In all the time I've been online, I've only received two viruses and both were through a foolish mistake on my part. Geeze... we can spend money and time and effort almost on a daily basis trying to protect ourselves from the big, bad something out there that is supposedly lying in wait. And THAT becomes our sole focus. Well.. not me. I have a firewall (ZA free version). I have an updated anti-virus program (AVG free version). I am behind a NAT router. I use three anti-spyware programs and keep them updated and run them fairly frequently. Beyond that..... I use common sense (which it seems to me is sadly lacking in many who come on here complaining about having viruses [one only has to discover that they've been visiting certain sites to realize what probably happened]).

Security has been dealt with ... period. It is not my main focus. My family and friends are. The little research I do online is. These are the areas in which I choose to focus my attention. I let the worriers who think there is a boogieman under every rock, upturn those rocks for me. But for the most part... I ignore their predictions of doom and gloom.

Anyway... all the best in your continued vigilance.

 

Ok

Keep the following in mind:

Lots of folks get infected w/o visiting "questionable" sites, all that's needed is an infected server.

Lots of non-**** (if that's what you mean by "questionable ") sites have links that lead to sites that dump malware onto the user's system in order to get: high page counts - slanted search results - program downloads to track the user.

And no matter what site the user ends up on, on purpose or not, everyone should have the tools and techniques to avoid or limit the damage.

Regards - Charles