Panel paints grim picture of cybercrime battle

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I'll say the public needs to be educated

I'm a bit tired of wasting my time calling this one out but the problem is this:

1) Windows XP ships to home users with a privileged admin account, aka ?God Account? as in I can do anything as in whatever I run can do anything as in, including planting all kinds of malware.

2) MS doesn't install a "limited account" which would cut the severity of *MANY* of these security breaches with home computers. Why? Because

a) Some software written for Windows 9x/ME will not work with a limited account, e.g., WinAmp, Trillian and various home finance and digital photography software

b) Users' annoyance with authenticating themselves, i.e. passwords.

The last two points would result in increased support costs for MS and purveyors of its software, e.g., Dell.

So yes people this is NOTHING MORE than putting the onus on the end user because of money. Never mind that MS has money coming out of its arse.

Despite being a massive proponent of open source software and maintaining a LINUX server and using Mozilla I do not let this blind me to the fact that the Windows NT kernel, which originated in the early 90's has very robust security.

The concept of "least privelege" is a very simple. Going back to the multiuser systems of the 1960's... namely, "Don't make everyone an administrator of the computer system!"

But in the case of home computing, you have one, two or a few users and convenience always wins, i.e. setup a new home system with the ability to do anything.

That's fine, but if you conduct ANY finances on such a computer, you're an idiot if you refuse to sacrifice some measure of convenience for security. The stupidity includes refusing to educate yourself on this matter. ?But the kids use it.? Fine, give them their own computer and setup a personal firewall on your own ?finances? computer since rest assured they?ll pull something down that once in your home network can readily breach your ?finance? system if you?re not good about updates.

Sadly, the ignorance I speak of extends well into the IT ranks. I was talking on a tech forum about the use of limited accounts to severely mitigate security problems. I also pointed out that one could readily run programs that normally would not operate on a limited desktop. It is trivial to do this, YET, one person called me a "weenie" for knowing all this. Never mind my field is IT security.

Well folks, despite running on Windows XP day to day on my desktop, I have never had virus or spyware on my system. EVER.

-M

Posted by: betelgeuse68   Posted on: 06/02/05 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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