Your computer may be at risk!

[Sceadwian]

Are you one of these people?
Scareware Surging, Microsoft Report Finds -- Microsoft Security -- InformationWeek

 

[tcmtech]

Simple fix! Here you go!
I just cured all of humanities problems with one simple solution.

Is there a common sense test?
If not there should be one!
And make it an annual requirement! I would happily allow a few more dollars to be taken out of my paychecks to have that funded!

Score it on a scale of 0 to 100

95 or less: You can’t have any type of leadership or group responsibility job.
90 or less: You can’t have any basic management job.
85 or less: You can’t have more than a grunt workers job.
80 or less: No motor vehicle or heavy equipment operation, Bicycle or public transportation only.
75 or less: No health insurance coverage. Insuring you is just a burden on the higher level people.
70 or less: Public housing only. NO home ownership. AND no computer access.
65 or less: No bicycle or public transportation. You’re just a clueless nuisance to regular public at this level.
60 or less: No pets. Animals have more common sense than you at this point.
55 or less: Ward of the state. You are unfit to be out in public unassisted or without supervision.
50 or less: Institutionalized. Your unfit to be anywhere in public for any reason.
30 or less: Death by lethal injection. You are unfit to even live and are a total unrecoverable burden on society.
10 or less: The tester is authorized to shoot you onsite. Your movements alone are a danger to everyone around you.

 

[Mikebits]

I don't think common sense is the issue. Many of these unscrupulous websites mislead you into their web of deceit. For example; a harmless looking site may have. Click here to read more about the plight of the red winged bonky bird. Once you click the seemingly harmless link, you have just downloaded a nasty malware. These people should be severely punished.

 

[duffy]

Common sense is a collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen.

 

[Sceadwian]

It's not common sense, but it is a trust issue. Too many people think the net is intrinsically safe, or that having anti virus software on their machine actually protects them from this stuff (which it doesn't) The growth in the number of viruses 'in the wild' grows exponentially every few years, even though the anti-virus industry is a multi billion dollar industry and thriving. Also all you have to do is say the word 'free' nowdays and people flock to you like flies to honey.

 

[gabeNC]

As someone who cleans this crap off of the computers of friends and family, I think it comes down to 3 things.

1) Windows is inherently insecure. non-monolithic kernel, most people want to have admin rights etc. It is a big target because 95% of the world's PC's run windows.

2) The web is not safe. Even "drive-by" surfing can result in malware. People are conditioned to click "allow". And when you tighten up your security permissions in the browser some "rich" applications don't work.

3) Sometimes I don't mind because I get paid.

Last month my neighbour called because his machine "was under attack". There were constant messages about ping sweeps and port scans. It was fake virus software and asked you the purchase the upgraded version. After I'm done I get to use his bobcat and bucket truck... it's win/win.

If you really want to see something interesting plug a laptop between an infected machine and the net, load snort or wireshark, allow traffic to pass through (transparent bridged firewall).

 

[duffy]

If you really want to see something interesting plug a laptop between an infected machine and the net, load snort or wireshark, allow traffic to pass through (transparent bridged firewall).

Why, what's there?

 

[HiTech]

I've finally located the elusive creature!

**broken link removed** to see the red-winged bonky bird!

 

[Mike_2545]

I've finally located the elusive creature!

**broken link removed** to see the red-winged bonky bird!

I'm not that gullable.

 

[gabeNC]

Why, what's there?

Okay... I think it's interesting, you may not.

You can use wireshark to see what is in the payload and where the said connection is going to, even reassemble the stream.

I think the honeypot project is really neat too.

Honeynet Project Blog | The Honeynet Project

 

[HiTech]

I'm not that gullable.

It's safe to click on -- your pupils may dilate, but your PC won't be harmed.

 

[duffy]

You can use wireshark to see what is in the payload and where the said connection is going to, even reassemble the stream.

Yes, and - ?

 

[gabeNC]

Yes, and - ?

'Cmon man... what more do you need? This and sliced bread are the greatest things since... well... since. Okay. You win.

 

[duffy]

I thought you were going to tell us you found packets with IP headers to deepest China or reassembled .jpg's of bin Laden or something.

 

[gabeNC]

I thought you were going to tell us you found packets with IP headers to deepest China or reassembled .jpg's of bin Laden or something.

Guess you guys were on the edge of your seat with bated breath, sorry to disapoint. it's nothing THAT exciting or anything.

Most of the IP's in my firewall logs are from Asia. Ssh is the only port open and people like to run brute force tools like hydra against it. Glad PF supports overloading.

 

[Sceadwian]

PF overloading? You lost me there.

 

[gabeNC]

PF is Openbsd's packet filter. You can set the overloading function to automatically blacklist an IP based upon a threshold like total or rate of connections.