So will the latest RPC/Windows hole make people consider non windows OS?

[Soybomb]

I hope it doesn't. If people can't handle running windows update once a month or turning on automatic updates, the last thing I want for them to do is install some linux distro with an old version of apache, a vulnerable ftp server, and numerous other services available for exploitation. They need to take care of their machine no matter what.

 

[Thor86]

Originally posted by: Mitzi
No! A virus which affects a known about exploit and one where a patch has been available for some weeks will not make me consider using a non Windows OS as my primary OS. If users don't want to keep their own systems up-to-date and secure then tough, they get what they deserve. In my opinion you can't blame Microsoft for PBKAC issues

Second that!

 

[xcript]

Originally posted by: Thor86

Originally posted by: Mitzi
No! A virus which affects a known about exploit and one where a patch has been available for some weeks will not make me consider using a non Windows OS as my primary OS. If users don't want to keep their own systems up-to-date and secure then tough, they get what they deserve. In my opinion you can't blame Microsoft for PBKAC issues

Second that!

Hear, hear!

Edit: Although, it's nice being able to blame microsoft for everything.

OMG my kernel recompile failed! DAMN YOU MICROSOFT!!

 

[NuclearFusi0n]

Originally posted by: AmigaMan
Nope because you can't play all the cool games on your mac or linux machine. Sucks but it's true. Until Linux takes over the game market, people will still have PC's to play their games on. Then if that ever happened, you'd have to convince everyone that OpenOffice or whatever is as good as MS Office. I'm not saying that your Office suite of choice isn't as good as MS Office, but you have to convince the drones and lemmings out there that it is.

Frozen Bubble for life, fool.

 

[Drift3r]

It all depends on what you use windows for IMHO. If it's just web surfing and email then I do not see a reason to waste your time on windows when you can do the same with Linux at a much cheaper cost ( lower then windows or FREE ! ). Another area would also be for business servers needs and small/medium size office needs. Again I do not see a reason to stick with windows since you have OO/SO, Evolution, and other office software that can easily save you a bundle and a hassle of paying through the nose because of the MS tax ( aka crazy license fees ). If you are a gamer or a person who depends on a particular software application that can only be found on windows to do work on then yeah windows is a good choice. In the end it is all about your needs and what you are willing to put up with in both environments. As for me I am happily will dual-boot until W2K is no longer supported, as I can't stand any of that Palladium/Trusted Computing hyper-bole MS will be pushing in it's next OS.

 

[RalfHutter]

If someone's too lazy to get themselves a router and keep their OS patched I really don't think they're the type of person who is willing to go the extra mile to run an "alternative" OS. I mean how hard is it to download a stinking patch as opposed to learning a whole new OS.

 

[Flatline]

I bet it could be a bit more touch-and-go when your machine is rebooting every 60 seconds

 

[Bleep]

If someone's too lazy to get themselves a router

That is somewhat a problem in itself. Their are a lot of ISP's that make it against their terms of service to use a router.
They are so darn scared that you are going to use 2 computers with 1 IP.

Bleep

 

[newbiepcuser]

Originally posted by: owensdj
There are security holes in other operating systems.

 

[Rainsford]

Yeah, considering how less often I have to patch my FreeBSD box than my Windows box, I've considered switching. Then I remember that I do stuff that I need Windows for (sorry, gaming on anything but Windows is a poor second) and I realize that never, ever, ever in my years of using Windows has my personal box been hacked, got a virus, or anything at all along those lines. So obviously Windows can be secure, I think it's more pilot error when it isn't.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Didn't have to consider a switch. I made it a while ago. And since then, only 1 remote root hole in the default install.

 

[Drift3r]

Originally posted by: Rainsford
Yeah, considering how less often I have to patch my FreeBSD box than my Windows box, I've considered switching. Then I remember that I do stuff that I need Windows for (sorry, gaming on anything but Windows is a poor second) and I realize that never, ever, ever in my years of using Windows has my personal box been hacked, got a virus, or anything at all along those lines. So obviously Windows can be secure, I think it's more pilot error when it isn't.

Yeah but a good hacker or virii writer will make sure that the average Joe will never ever, ever realize that they did get hacked or infected with a virii, trojan, or worm.

 

[EeyoreX]

No. As has been mentioned, a box is a box regardless of the OS running. Run any OS improperly and you'll get hacked, hammered, exploited, etc. I had a rig get infected just once. And it was my own failure to install the proper updates on one rig that got me. It's not someone elses fault, not the jack@ss "hackers", not Microsoft, not the PC Gremlins. It was my own fault. Whatever OS you choose, secure it. Do you lock your house when you go out? Lock your car doors when you park on the street? If you don't and your car is stolen or your house ransacked, you have no one but yourself to blame. Same with your PC. Lock your doors and stop whining or talking about how some other house/car/OS is better because it hasn't ben stolen/hacked. I also second the statement about sheer numbers. When 90+% of home users running a Windows OS and you consider how many of those people don't have IT staffs, support and a good working knowledge and you see why a "hacker" will exploit Windows and not Linux.

\Dan

 

[Nothinman]

Yeah but a good hacker or virii writer will make sure that the average Joe will never ever, ever realize that they did get hacked or infected with a virii, trojan, or worm.

It's not even the good one's causing the problems though, the blaster that's going around crashes like 30% of the machines it attacks because it has code specifically for XP or Win2K and it guesses wrong sometimes.

 

[GonzoDaGr8]

So will the latest RPC/Windows hole make people consider non windows OS?

No. My windows box is my toy..If some virii should actually get through to me and blow up my
Windows install, I'm fully backed up and ready to restore within and hour or so. Even then, I can allways get on my mac until I get around to fixing my Win box which still takes preference over the mac.

 

[Nothinman]

No. My windows box is my toy..If some virii should actually get through to me and blow up my Windows install

But what if that virii doesn't blow up the install but just installs a trojan that will DoS some site on a certain day, you might have no clue you're infected until you notice the Internet running really slow one day

 

[EeyoreX]

No. My windows box is my toy..If some virii should actually get through to me and blow up my Windows install

But what if that virii doesn't blow up the install but just installs a trojan that will DoS some site on a certain day, you might have no clue you're infected until you notice the Internet running really slow one day

I think his "If some virii should actually get through to me" statement implies he runs a secured (relatively speaking) box. With a firewall and/or AV software. If he does do this, and is responsible enough to make sure he checks his definitions and runs a virus scan now and again, it probably is unlikely the virus will go unnoticed. If he ment he runs neither a firewall nor AV software and justs trusts in his backup, your statement makes sense.

\Dan

 

[GonzoDaGr8]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

No. My windows box is my toy..If some virii should actually get through to me and blow up my Windows install

But what if that virii doesn't blow up the install but just installs a trojan that will DoS some site on a certain day, you might have no clue you're infected until you notice the Internet running really slow one day

Please note the "if" part of my post Nothinman...I am hardware firewalled, Anti-Virused, and well up to date with any and all patches..Thank you.

Editd for crappy spelling

 

[drag]

Originally posted by: Flatline
Frankly, anyone with broadband should be behind a firewall anyway. Even a software-based firewall could block this quite handily. Virus infections are usually (in my experience) a result of users not being careful enough with their machines.

don't forget. Very many dialup users got nailed by this latest worm too.


here's my 2 cents. Linux is a much better design for security. It's designed from the ground up as a multiuser enviroment and has many protections to prevent users from messing with the rest of the OS. So if one user account is comprimised a virus has much harder time attacking the rest of the OS. It's kinda like Windows takes security from the top down, and Linux (and other Unices) take it from the base up. It's easier to make Linux safe, then Windows.

That being said, it's more up to the admin of the box then anything else. This patch was out for a month and yet still banks and government agencies were still affected. This indicates the places were we would assume the highest amount of security measures would be used realy failed to even follow fundamental aspects of computer security. So they would be screwed irregardless which OS they use.

But to answer the original question, Yes this should make you think about switching. IMO Linux is just a plain better OS. Although there are plenty of fine OSes out their like FreeBSD, or OS X. Linux however stands the best chance for attracting new users.

What we need is more compitition.

 

[Nothinman]

This patch was out for a month and yet still banks and government agencies were still affected. This indicates the places were we would assume the highest amount of security measures would be used realy failed to even follow fundamental aspects of computer security. So they would be screwed irregardless which OS they use.

Consider how difficult it is to keep all the companie's workstations up to date. You can't let them just use WU because for a company of any size that would kill your Internet connection periodically as 500+ machines try to download patches from WU. You can probably use AD GPOs to push updates, but most places are still in the beginning to middle of their AD migration if one is happening at all. And I believe MS SUS requires AD and only works on servers currently, which makes it borderline useless. With a host of Linux boxes it would be simple to write a script to scp an RPM over and install it remotely.

 

[Mitzi]

Originally posted by: Bleep

If someone's too lazy to get themselves a router

That is somewhat a problem in itself. Their are a lot of ISP's that make it against their terms of service to use a router.
They are so darn scared that you are going to use 2 computers with 1 IP.

Bleep

Really? Whoo, that sucks. My ISP encourages the use of a router and I am allowed as many machines connected to it as I wish. I'm also allowed to run servers from home and have no download limits (except for the limited bandwidth of course).

Edit: Link to their FAQ

 

[kurt454]

I had to do a fresh install of Windows XP Pro a few days before blaster hit big time. I had no patches whatsoever on the machine. I did have XP's built in firewall turned on, and I did not get hit with this worm. I have since patched the system no problem. This exploit would hardly make me switch to another os.

 

[Nothinman]

Really? Whoo, that sucks. My ISP encourages the use of a router and I am allowed as many machines connected to it as I wish. I'm also allowed to run servers from home and have no download limits (except for the limited bandwidth of course).

Your ISP would seem to be the exception rather than the rule.

 

[drag]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

This patch was out for a month and yet still banks and government agencies were still affected. This indicates the places were we would assume the highest amount of security measures would be used realy failed to even follow fundamental aspects of computer security. So they would be screwed irregardless which OS they use.

Consider how difficult it is to keep all the companie's workstations up to date. You can't let them just use WU because for a company of any size that would kill your Internet connection periodically as 500+ machines try to download patches from WU. You can probably use AD GPOs to push updates, but most places are still in the beginning to middle of their AD migration if one is happening at all. And I believe MS SUS requires AD and only works on servers currently, which makes it borderline useless. With a host of Linux boxes it would be simple to write a script to scp an RPM over and install it remotely.

There is no way for you to just download the patch to a ftp server on your lan or anything like that?

It that is true, what a crappy way to distribute patches. I guess that could be another example of bad design choices. Lets make it the most expensive and inconvenent way possible to distribute patches! We will put it on a single server(or server group) on the internet and not make it accessable in any other way!! We can make it easy, but it will co$t..

I know from my experiances with Macs (helping run 180+ G4s on a school LAN), that we kept up to date on patches. The main administrator would keep track of the updates issued from Apple and e-mail or call me whenever we had a new update. If it was a big one like a quicktime upgrade I'd just go to versiontracker.com and download it from a file server. Then just systematicly go to all of them and install the package. If it was up to me I'd figure out a Unix way of doing it, but they (bosses) were all Windows and Old-school mac people and that scared them and made me do it one by one. Small patches I would install just by running the update program and download them directly from apple.

To mitigate any problems the Mac guru would just install the updates on her personal computer and make sure that it didn't cause anyproblems. The only thing we would put off for a while the OS upgrades, like from 10.2.4 to 10.2.6 and stuff like that. We were carefull because the W2k file servers were have a hissy fit and refused to work properly with the macs. At firsty we thought it was the OS updates because it seemed to coincide with 10.2.4 upgrade. however it turned out the w2k reverse lookup configuration was screwed up and combined with networking issues were the main problems. Go figure.

Once we got the liscence for the remote desktop I installed the clients on a all the Macs and the server stuff I descreatly installed on a few key machines. Once that was installed I could simply download the patches from versiontracker and apple.com. Then I would use the remote desktop to broadcast the patches to 50 or so computers at a time and they would automaticly install the updates. If I was carefull with which ones required reboots I could install them on computers that were even being used at the time by students and they wouldn't notice the difference. Me, a part time temp, would single handedly install all the nessicary patches and updates in a couple hours of work for a entire lab of macs. (cover a hundred macs in two rooms, while still hepling out students and teachers with different problems or questions, and people running in and out working for a half hour on a random mac for some project or homework.)

So I guess OS X just spoiled me.

Linux would be even easier cause then I would have ssh set up before hand on the client desktops to accept a automated script using scp to download and install the relevent packages. (probably simple tarballs)

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

This patch was out for a month and yet still banks and government agencies were still affected. This indicates the places were we would assume the highest amount of security measures would be used realy failed to even follow fundamental aspects of computer security. So they would be screwed irregardless which OS they use.

Consider how difficult it is to keep all the companie's workstations up to date. You can't let them just use WU because for a company of any size that would kill your Internet connection periodically as 500+ machines try to download patches from WU. You can probably use AD GPOs to push updates, but most places are still in the beginning to middle of their AD migration if one is happening at all. And I believe MS SUS requires AD and only works on servers currently, which makes it borderline useless. With a host of Linux boxes it would be simple to write a script to scp an RPM over and install it remotely.

That is why enterprise level automatic patching systems are being developed.