Archived from groups: comp.security.firewalls (
More info?)
Gerald Vogt <vogt@spamcop.net> squirted these wordjisms deep inside the
bumtube of the newstwat in news:xU7pc.32592$hY.408@twister.nyroc.rr.com:
> David Qunt schrieb:
>
>> That said, I would still say that generally speaking, Moz Thunderbird
>> and Opera are much safer than OE/IE, mainly for the reasons you cite.
>> For a virus writer, finding new vulnerabilities in Mozilla/Opera will
>> 'earn' them far less kudos than finding vulnerabilities in OE/IE, for
>> the simple reason that they will affect less people.
>>
>
>>>The only thing that makes things "much safer" is you and what you do
>>>with your computer...
>>>
>> I agree wholeheartedly with this remark.
>>
>> However, what you do with yor computer (or computers if you are a
>> sysadmin) should include protecting yourself as far as possible from
>> the risks you are likely to encounter - which to me means properly
>> configuring and patching your client and server OS in line with how
>> vulnerable they are likely to be, employing a firewall (be it
>> hardware or software), and having decent AV, anti-trojan, and
>> anti-spyware measures in place. If these are maintained (or
>> administered in a corporate environment) regularly and well, the
>> likely result will be trouble-free computing.
>
> Well, I guess I should put it this way: "much safer" depends on the
> person who says it. If you know what you are doing you are probably
> right. You can say "much safer" if you know security. For example, for
> you the AV is a normally just a fallback/backup solution. Even with AV
> it probably won't come to your mind to just open an attachment you
> don't know about. So I would assume that you hardly ever hear from
> your AV-software.
>
That's true. It's configured to check for new signature files every half
hour.
> However, tell someone who does not know about security that with AV
> his computer is much safer now. For him, it may be not much safer
> because now he drops his guards and thinks he can open any attachment
> because if it was a virus his AV would tell him. So if something that
> is supposed to make things "much safer" actually lead to people
> getting careless you
> will gain nothing in the end. Sooner or later you will have the
> newest
> most clever virus in you Inbox that the AV doesn't know about, yet...
> (It is kind of like people who think they can speed with their car
> because it is so much safer with all the anti-blocking brakes,
> airbags, etc...)
>
> Gerald
That's all true.
We have wandered into the territory of human involvement now, in the
sense that it matters not if you have the best defences in the world if
you don't keep them up to date. I agree that a naive user may be lulled
into a false sense of security after simply installing some AV software.
But the fact of the matter is that it is the responsibility of a user,
naive or otherwise, to keep his or her machine secure, by updating AV
software etc. With the current round of worms and other threats doing the
rounds, the security of others can be affected. So any consequences of
failing to secure a machine would be the fault of the naive user
concerned. It's only when those airbags you mention fail to inflate and
he smashes into a brick wall chin first that the penny will drop, and by
then it's too late.............
--
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* David Qunt
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