Hacker Claiming He Can Exploit Windows Update

It seems to me like this hacker is saying these things to convince people that windows updates are a bad thing, and you are falling for it. He is employing an old tactic, in which the threat itself is empty, but the reaction he hopes to get from people is what counts. In this case those who believe the threat are made vulnerable to other more real attacks because they are not getting regular security updates.

So then I guess you don't use the internet right? Because every time another program (Not limited to just web browsers) accesses the internet, it has some authority to run and download other files. Not all viruses are .exe files, and many types of malware can infiltrate your computer simply by visiting a webpage. Every time you "view" a web page, your web browser is downloading files to your hard drive. Whenever Windows, Adobe, your web browser, Java, or games download updates, there is a potential to be hacked. Programs are not written perfectly, people can use exploits to distribute viruses and obtain personal information without you knowing about it. Every time you install security updates you have to give administrative permission to do so, but not installing the updates makes it even easier to be hacked, so you can't ignore them Whenever a file not originating from the PC is written to the hard drive (even from CDs and flash drives, or memory cards), there is a potential for malware, spyware, or viruses. In fact, through exploits using flash drives and other physical media, it is possible to become infected without ever being connected to the internet at all. Because people are constantly finding loopholes through programs like web browsers, Flash, and product updates (Even "safe" products), common sense alone will not prevent viruses. In fact, common sense says install an anti-virus, something you aren't doing, correct? If you really need to squeeze every bit of performance out of your computer, either upgrade it or find a minimal antivirus program. There are plenty out there that do not hog resources, not ever antivirus acts like Norton.

Some malware is coded such as when you scan, it will not detect it, once it's infected no AV will do anything to save you, only way would be scanning with an external machine with a different OS, so you might indeed have a bunch of malware in your system right now

Um, some viruses infect the motherboard BIOS, graphics card BIOS and even peripherals like mice and keyboards. Can you imagine having to reformat several times not knowing where they come from each time you boot your computer? You physically yank the Ethernet cable and you're STILL infected.

I've been using Arch Linux as my main OS for almost two years now. Not ONCE did it die after an system-wide update. And this is a rolling release distribution, mind you. Meaning everything is fresh from the bakery! In case something does go wrong I can always chroot from a Live USB stick. I know how, I've done it before. Had to reinstall Windows XP once and that biatch replaced the GRUB2 master boot record. Honestly, it wasn't that difficult to fix it. Someone else might have pooped their pants (probably myself included when I was younger and still used Winamp and Y!M).

Anyway. Antiviruses. Last year or so, the hosts of the "Security Now" podcast talked about McAfee issuing an update which saw "svchost.exe" as a virus, quarantined it, and left some 40.000 business with unbootable PCs. Cool, huh? This was the top-tier "business" class antivirus suite too. The expensive one. http://www.zdnet.com/blog/bott/def [...] p-pcs/2003

You'd be surprised how much information those chips can hold. All it needs is a few lines of code that can tap the backspace key once in a while to annoy the *** out of you or maybe something even more evil, like looking for recurring phrases (which are usually usernames and passwords). Since most passwords are shown as " ****** ", all it has to do it replace one of them (in the final 6 characters so it doesn't show up in the username, because you'll obviously notice it then). You'll never log into anything again, I PROMISE YOU. It will take a good amount of time to figure it out, and you'll have to replace the keyboard.

Oh, and BIOS manufacturers intentionally leave more free space in case they need to issue an update. So it can hold even more complex code.