XP machines used by inexperienced people are the main backbone of botnets.
Call me a zealot, but if everyone was using Linux - as user - this simply wouldn't be happening. The Linux platform is hostile to both the installation and propagation of worms and malware. The argument that there are no Linux viruses because nobody bothers to write them is ancient nonsensical FUD btw.
Maybe everyone should dual boot... use your fave apps in offline Windows and surf with Linux. Best of both worlds.
Net bombarded by heaviest ever attacks this year
Summary
Online networks suffered their heaviest brute force attacks to date this year, with more sites than ever coming under sustained assault.
Topics
Online networks suffered their heaviest brute force attacks to date this year, with more sites than ever coming under sustained assault.
IP networks were bombarded by Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks – attempts to make networks unreachable by flooding them with traffic – as intense as 40Gbps, a survey of 70 IP network operators worldwide has claimed.
The report by Arbor Networks says that the largest sustained attacks in the last two years were 24 Gbps and 17 Gbps, a 67 per cent increase in attack scale over last year.
A total of 36 per cent of respondents suffered sustained attacks larger than 1Gbps last year and the number suffering attacks of this type doubled in 2008.
Botnets continue to be the main vehicle used to disrupt network operations - accounting for 26 per cent of attacks - followed by DNS cache poisoning.
Chief security officer for Arbor Networks Danny McPherson said the growth in attack size continues to "significantly outpace" the corresponding increase in underlying transmission speed and infrastructure investment.
Talkback Most Recent of 148 Talkback(s)
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Don Collins12th Nov 2008 -
Welll..
Dual boot is so passe these days. I have a client that need windows apps on their LINUX desktops, so we run a Virtual Window environment. Works great and solved all sorts of issues.
Linux_4u!12th Nov 2008 -
BotNet = Users
If everyone was on Linux the same people would be tricked into install bot net programs. I'm not saying its going to be easy for the programmers but it can be done. The weakest link in any computer is the user. If a person wants that Fancy icon,cursor there going to do what every it asks them to install it.
Stan5712th Nov 2008 -
Bingo - ! nt
nt
USTechHead12th Nov 2008 -
Linux Zealots are stupid.
They think that people that use Windows are stupid by definition. Of the 170 ppl I work with 90% of the then have a bachelor's degree, more than 1/2 have masters and more than a 1/3 have PhD's. How many use Linux aside from me? Two. Both play around with it as hobbyists but use Windows as their main OS.
Now why is that?
Duke E. Love13th Nov 2008 -
Sorry ...
Those bachelor, master and PhD's make up the majority of my repairs. Book sense, they may have, but not common sense. I can't tell you how many remark, "I don't have time to learn this".
A twelve year old is more security savvy.
Ask these enlighten minds to define firewall. You might get "the wall that separates apartments".
msdead14th Nov 2008 -
Sorry for what? Making money?
Most of these people don't have time to learn this sort of stuff... nor should they have to. The computer is a tool, nothing more and nothing less, to get things done. It is the only appliance, piece of electronics or machinery that requires you to need a near professional level experience to lock down and maintain. When you buy a PC it does not come with a set of instructions on how to secure it. Nor does it come with warning labels about the dangers of simply being online. That is why IT dept's exist at all: to deal with computers so other people can do the work (90% of the time) that actually generates revenue. And don't say Lunix because the tools that these people use don't exist for linux. Namely: SPSS and Office.Duke E. Love14th Nov 2008 -
Do some fact checking before making bogus statements.
SPSS is officially supported on Linux, and there is a very good MicrosoftOffice alternative called OpenOffice which runs on Linux/Mac as well.
AzuMao15th Nov 2008 -
Capt. Obvious Gets a gold star by his name.
My bad on SPSS
>>and there is a very good MicrosoftOffice alternative called OpenOffice which runs on Linux/Mac as well.
No shite Sherlock. Open Office is Java based. It will run on a Java enabled toaster.
To the FOSS crowd it is the *code* that is important and not the UI, which is one of the reason that Linux has failed to gain any sort of market share outside uber geek world. Great server, sh!tty desk top. They get as far as "Hey look, it works, you should be happy.... and then they stop production. Look... most FOSS apps have a sh!tty UI (if one at all), and the documentation is sparse (if it exists at all) and written in an obscure Klingon dialect.
My favorite quote about OSS:
"But Open Source software is FREE!!!!" So is dirt. Bl0w me.Duke E. Love15th Nov 2008 -
Maybe obvious to most people..
But obviously not obvious to you, or you wouldn't have said what you said. Unless you WANTED to look like an immature kid.AzuMao16th Nov 2008 -
HAha
Thank you for playing. Your not above being s douche bag either.
Linux is not a good Desktop OS. I am willing to bet money that in the next year, when money gets real tight that the linux desktop will gain more than another 1 or 2% desktop market share even though it is free. Maybe in Gov't under Obama.
Linux has had 10 years to make a mark and failed. Fire fox has a 30% market share even though is a RAM sucking ho. Farkin Vista is doing better than Linux... That is SAD. It is mostly because the focus has been the enterprise data center.
I would be the first one to switch to a Linux desktop if it "Just Worked". I have tried every year since '98 and after a while I just said screw it. $100 every 3-5 years is worth not having to kludge together a big half-assed work around to get things done.Duke E. Love16th Nov 2008 -
What kind of problems are you having on it?
I know there are some new DX10-only games made for Windows that don't work in Linux, but that's hardly a fault in Linux. Just like Windows being unable to run a Linux program isn't a problem with Windows.
Is this all you meant? Or something else? Because that's basically the only reason not many people use it. Because not many companies make programs for it. Because not many people use it.AzuMao17th Nov 2008 -
Users = security holes
"XP machines used by inexperienced people are the main backbone of botnets."
Replace XP machines with Linux machine and we will have the same inexperienced people that uses the computer and will fall pray to what ever malware those virus makers will do and they will elevate that malware's binary regardless of the OS.
The biggest security hole is not in the code, but the user itself regardless of OS(Mac, Windows, Linux).
Linux is not somekind of hallowed ground that prevent the vampiric viruses from entering.
PS: Using an argument that can be used to counter itself is stupid... as using the "I am invincible" argument to counter a so called FUD is equally stupid.
Ceridan12th Nov 2008 -
Windows makes it easy to be stupid
That is the primary issue. Yes it doesn't matter what operating system you're running (Linux, Windows, OSX, Solaris), if you're a stupid user you will probably get botted at some point.
But the thing is that Windows makes it fairly easy for your computer to end up on a botnet without you knowing about it. Simply having auto-update not turned on, or not working properly, is pretty much a guarantee. And when everything you do requires you to click 3 or 4 dialog boxes approving it, you get "cry wolf" syndrome pretty quickly.
Myrkkin12th Nov 2008 -
What is the difference between ignorance and stupidity?
Just an honest question.Duke E. Love12th Nov 2008
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