Malware Found On Brand-New Windows Netbook 250
An anonymous reader alerts us to an interesting development that Kaspersky Labs stumbled across. They purchased a new M&A Companion Touch netbook in order to test a new anti-virus product targeted at the netbook segment, and discovered three pieces of malware on the factory-sealed netbook. A little sleuthing turned up the likely infection scenario — at the factory, someone was updating Intel drivers using a USB flash drive that was infected with a variant of the AutoRun worm. "Installed along with the worm was a rootkit and a password stealer that harvests log-in credentials for online games such as World of Warcraft. ... To ensure that a new PC is malware-free, [Kaspersky] recommended that before users connect the machine to the Internet, they install security software, update it by retrieving the latest definition file on another computer, and transferring that update to the new system, then running a full antivirus scan."
They really hand-install drivers? (Score:5, Interesting)
I kind of figured that computer manufacturers had hard drive arrays to clone a pre-made installation. Pull each drive off the rack, put it in the computer, and make sure it boots, then box it.
They're really installing drivers by having some schmuck walk around with a USB stick?
Uh, what the... ? (Score:3, Interesting)
"transferring that update to the new system, then running a full antivirus scan."
I guess I've been out of the Microsoft ecosystem for a long, long time... is it now common practice to run AV scans in a probably compromised environment? Or are malware authors so lazy these days that they can't even bother to write code which breaks any installed AV software?
c.
Re:Right..... (Score:5, Interesting)
Mr haireyfeet - thank you for reminding me why I have been reading /. for the last GKHL.
That is a beautifully pitched diatribe with a good measure of sarcasm and humour, mixed in with a few typographical conventions that I don't really understand but could make an educated guess at.
However, there are an awfull lot of Linux (and *BSD et al) systems that are being put in the hands of Tuxvelma. You see, like it as not we Linux admins are not the only folk who access these things or even (shock, horror) actually own them.
My wife is not exactly the most technologically sharp person but she insists (after a bit of a demo) on FF for her browser.
Also, after Vista went a bit wonky on her identical to mine laptop, she asked me to put whatever I was running on it. So (1 year) now (5 months) we (20 days) have another Gentoo user - belting!
Incidentaly I'm an MCSE as well (crap). Oh and an NCP and an LCP and a complete and utter nerd. I'm also an MD. Nerd or MD - I'm not sure which I prefer most.
Re:Right..... (Score:2, Interesting)
Perhaps their credentials would be intimidating, if I didn't have my own. May I remind you this is slashdot, some of us have credentials from real schools, not 3rd rate schools like Penn State. Some of the guys mentioned likely contributed no more than a single quote and didn't write or approve the paper in whole.
From your paper:
"For two-way interactive communications â" such as between fax machines or personal email â" the value of the network rises proportionally to N2, the square of the potential number of users (âoeMetcalfeÊs Lawâ). Thus, if the number of people on email doubles in a given year, the number of possible communications rises by a factor of four."
The first part is correct, that is what Metcalfe's Law states. It's about computing the value of a network given N number of connections. However, the second part which they state is based on the law (by using "Thus"), is incorrect. That is not what the law states, in fact if you read the detailed law in whole, you will see that it says that the number of possible connections rises proportioanlly to N squared, not N squared as they have stated in the paper.
From wikipedia:
"Metcalfe's law characterizes many of the network effects of communication technologies and networks such as the Internet, social networking, and the World Wide Web. It is related to the fact that the number of unique connections in a network of a number of nodes (n) can be expressed mathematically as the triangular number n(n â' 1)/2, which is proportional to n2 asymptotically."
I can continue to rip your paper to shreds if you want, like fact that the title of the paper is about how bad monoculture is to security, yet their suggested "fixes" have absolutely nothing to do with changing that fact at all! And they came to these conclusions that don't support the paper's title after 19 pages of biased Microsoft bashing. So here's your paper summed up:
Monoculture is bad for security
bash Microsoft for 19 pages.
Pull conclusion out of behind by stating they need to publish APIs and become like IEEE/ITF/ISO that has no support from any of the previous 19 pages of bashing.
Wow, much easier to read, you should just post that instead of linking to that paper from now on. Saves your readers time in deciding that you have no clue what you are talking about.
Re:Or... (Score:1, Interesting)
They're not doing that either. Installing an OS really isn't difficult - even XP (which is so archaic, it demands a floppy disk if you want to install to an unsupported hard-raid) will install if you click through it - very few steps are personalised (licence key, timezone, keyboard map, user/s). I've done at least 2 dozen XP installs, and I'm certain that the install defaults encompass the majority of users (single partition/single disk, US keymap, etc) You're fine as long as you have all your driver discs (hell, even just your NIC's driver means you can use windows Add New Hardware wizard or google). Of course, installing any reasonably modern/friendly Linux OS makes that look like rocket science (eg, Ubuntu comes on a livecd and only asks 5 questions during install, and comes with as many drivers as possible) - which is probably why grandparent suggested it.
Well, cars need licences, don't they? Which isn't such a bad idea (in theory) - computers are reaching the point where they can endanger lives (personal and corporate bankruptcy from malware, Meagan Meiers, wowcrack, etc). Of course, in practice, no single set of questions could possibly indicate sufficient competency for all users - Mac or BeOS or Linux or BSD users couldn't be tested the same set of questions that Microsoft users are (hell, there isn't even parity between Microsoft's OSs, nor between different Linux distros). Not to mention all the different sets of software (eg, webmail competency vs ISP-provided mail server competency vs self-managed mail server competency).