Just got Windows 8, but . . .

[dAnceguy117]

Originally Posted by dragon890x

That's funny, I remember a Windows XP "important update" that contained software with an embedded virus.

yikes, I haven't heard about this incident. link plz?

Originally Posted by dragon890x

On a lighter note, worrying about Windows Updates for security doesn't do justice to your anti-virus or firewall software. If you truly are going to waste your time setting up barricades thinking no one will be able to hack into your system, you should put effort into keeping those updated.

antivirus software works well when fighting old malware. that probably covers most of the attacks that an average home user would encounter. still, AV software will only get you so far.

if you firewall most of your ports, that does help with safety quite a bit. some other precautions, such as disabling scripting in your web browser and only allowing the browser to navigate to your own list of trusted websites, can assist a great deal as well.

I would argue that these precautions limit usability, however. manually blocking/allowing access to ports whenever you want to use a certain type of process would be a pain, and your computer is still prone to being attacked while those ports are open. personally, I would much rather spend a lot less time worrying about what might be out there. switching to a modern OS will almost definitely help with security, and it's quick and easy.

Originally Posted by dragon890x

Look at all of the problems that have occurred, or in this case haven't.

http://www.securelist.com/en/analysi...tatistics_2011

For the purposes of mass infection, malicious users often take advantage of vulnerabilities that have been well known for a long time, while zero-day exploits are saved for more targeted attacks. The reason is simple: there are plenty of computers around the world still running with outdated software and operating systems. Specifically, within the KSN network 63% of computers that were attacked were running on Windows XP, while only 37% of attacks targeted Windows 7 and Vista.

the OS itself may not be the cause of this huge discrepancy (or at least not the only factor). still, the longer an OS hangs around, the more time malware developers have to poke some holes. XP has been out for an eternity.

Originally Posted by dragon890x

When it comes to viruses and being 'hacked', the number one cause is the user.

true, but it's far from the only cause. reminded me of this post:

Originally Posted by UserNameGoesHere

Install WindowsXP original edition (not SP1 or SP2) from official Microsoft installation media on a brand new hard drive and then immediately get the updates (don't browse any websites or install anything else first) and let me know how that works out for you.

10 out of 10 says you'll be infected before you can even get the updates.

The "solution" is to block specific ports in a hardware firewall, disable very specific things on WindowsXP prior to ever connecting a network cable, change several other things, and then connect to update and hope it's good enough to be able to get the updates before you get hit with something exploiting that older unpatched version of Windows. And/or download the updates on a different machine, copy them to some media you'll then use on the unpatched machine (external hard drive for example) to patch prior to ever touching the Internet.

Mind explaining why that's 100% the user's fault without resorting to lol buy a newer computer or lol buy a newer version of Windows or lol use Linux/Mac or some other non-answer?