How Long will an unpacthed PC Last?

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According to This Report from El Reg studies have the survival time down to 4 minutes.

So knowing this how would you cope?

Personally I have downloaded a copy of Avg and Comodo before I start the install process, and before I go out to the web.

Do you guys know of a better way?

 

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I've had one that was scanned and attacked within 5 minutes of being on the net.

I usually start by having the latest SP and an antivirus program on a USB stick or on a network share. I always make sure that I am also behind a firewall too.

 

As well as an anti-virus and firewall I also use Autopatcher. This means that the machine can be brought up to date without putting it on the 'net.

I usually also install Firefox!

Harry.

 

I would say 4 minutes is accurate. When I used to use comodo firewall it sometimes used to knock itself off, but as soon as this happened Avira started beeping to indicate a malware intrusion.

I've got rid of comodo now since its been dodgy since version 3 was introduced.

 

I would say let's not get paranoid.

Depends on your definition of "attacked" - I have setup brand new pc's, connected to the net just for MS updates and then installed anti-spyware s/w and it will pick up some cookies etc. but nothing that is causing damage.

Similarly, ZoneAlarm will show "attacks" but again no resulting harm.

Now, if you mean, email accounts configured, going to "dodgy" websites etc. then what do you expect ?!

I'm not saying you shouldn't run without protection that would be silly. However, in business circumstances where their website is not used a lot for contact and contains no email address, staff do not use pcs for anything other than legitimate work purposes only (i.e. personal stuff done on a machine in the staff canteen etc) and employment contracts that really spell out the issues, I have noticed very little in terms of attacks. Granted, there will always be exceptions (and reasons) but no need for paranoia

 

Hmm, I didn't think it was that bad..

Though I installed a copy of XP recently which was only SP1 and by the time I installed antivirus and run a scan, over 40 viruses were found. I really couldn't be bothered with the trouble so I removed the entire OS and installed another copy preloaded with SP2 and it was fine

 

The article is a bunch of boolshiat hype. I've been infected by one virus in the last 20 years (nimba through IIS on a Windows 2000 AS box).

 

Then you are a) lucky and b) atypical.

XP with SP1 only 'out of the box' was easy to break into from outside (remember Lsass? ). Under 10 mins was quite typical and I had quite a few people bring me infected boxes where they had only just installed XP, and were immediately 'hit'.

These days it is harder - mostly because SP2 put the firewall on by default.

Harry.

 

I'd say I'm neither lucky nor atypical. I'd bet most people here use virus scanners that seldom, if ever, catch anything. So it's simply a matter of believeing your own eyes rather than the boolshiat security fascists publish to justify their existence.

Unless you're running a public service (like IIS) there's really very little danger. To find your unpatched computer someone would first have to do a ping sweep of your ISP's entire range and then port scan each machine that responded. And that'll only succeed if you're not behind a firewall that most cheap SOHO routers enable by default.