12 minutes to infection

After seeing it referenced at Slashdot, I looked up this new article from Sophos, claiming that an " unprotected, unpatched Windows PC" would have a 50% chance of being infected by a virus after going online.

I wonder what Sophos mean by 'Unpatched'  What versions of Windows are they talking about?  By Unpatched, do they mean XP RTM?

Possibly Windows XP, sans any updates including Service Pack 1 or 2.

Infected not so much, but a completely unpatched (so no service packs, nothing) Windows XP or Windows Server 2003 machine would get shut down by something like Blaster before you have the time to install updates.

This is one the main reasons why the firewall is enabled by default in Windows XP SP2, and even in Windows Server 2003 SP1, where the firewall is not enabled by default, it will block all incoming traffic after a clean install (from a slipstreamed CD) until the "Secure Your Server" wizard has been run, which allows you to install updates.

This is a bunch of BS and a major exageration.  I had to reformat my drive this week and I desided to test this theory since I've heard it before also.  I left my pc on all night with a fresh install of Windows XP, SQL Server 2000 and a port monitor (no SP's) and guess what, nothing.  Not a virus, worm or even a port scan.

I installed some AV software afterwards and did a scan just to check and I got nothing.  This is just an assumption to try to prove how unsecure/unsafe MS products are and people are quick to jump on believing it based on the company's history.

Oh and incase you're wondering, the PC was hooked up to a router but I moved it into the DMZ to rule that out as well.

Don't they call an "unprotected, unpatched PC" linux?..

Hm..
Steve.

I've had a PC running fine without a firewall, no updates, no antivirus, and no router, and my computer was virus free for many years, no problem whatsoever.




mVPstar

I don't know anout XP particularly, since I've never tried that. But I have had Windows Server 2003 boxes shut down within minutes of startup if they were unpatched and unfirewalled.

Blkbam wrote:

This is a bunch of BS and a major exageration.  I had to reformat my drive this week and I desided to test this theory since I've heard it before also.  I left my pc on all night with a fresh install of Windows XP, SQL Server 2000 and a port monitor (no SP's) and guess what, nothing.  Not a virus, worm or even a port scan.

Ah yes, but are you behind a NAT or router?

Well I think some of you are talking rubbish as I get scanned by a trojan according to my logs every 5min's or so... Although it's in Sophos's best interest to make the results look as bad a possible you can't call what they are saying a flat out lie if you run even the most basic tests yourself (and are not an AOL user).

mVPstar wrote:

I've had a PC running fine without a firewall, no updates, no antivirus, and no router, and my computer was virus free for many years, no problem whatsoever.

Running Windows? That's highly dubious.

IT takes about that much time to get infected in our corporate LAN. I had to reinstall Win2K and I wouldn't last more than 15 minutes connected to the network. Same for our lab machines.

I stay virus-free and spyware-free for months, even a year at times. But now I'm infected and I'm too lazy to clean it up again.

My software dev PC is clean though.
Steve.

Blaster was a good virus. We should get a few more like that, it was quite the mind bogler.

Steve.

Cairo wrote:

mVPstar wrote: I've had a PC running fine without a firewall, no updates, no antivirus, and no router, and my computer was virus free for many years, no problem whatsoever.

Running Windows? That's highly dubious.

This was well over 7 years ago.  I started caring about computer security after Blaster came out.

Edit: This was Windows 95 that I kept for many years without security swag.


It could also vary from network to network. I had another unpatched, unfirewalled Win2k Pro PC on for at least 2 hours when the Blaster worm struck and my system didn't shutdown. When I finally did get a software firewall that same week, I kept monitoring the event logs. There were very little attempts (which I assumed was blaster) on my system...about one every hour.  As far as port scanning, I've only gotten port scanned around 3-4 times within 3 years. Trojan attacks...~9/10 times.

Then again, my software firewall could have let a lot of stuff through, thus making my event log flawed a bit....


Well, now I have an MS router in addition to a software firewall so I haven't really noticed any attacks on my system. The router event logs confuse me.


mVPstar

mVPstar wrote:

I've had a PC running fine without a firewall, no updates, no antivirus, and no router, and my computer was virus free for many years, no problem whatsoever.

mVPstar wrote:

This was well over 7 years ago.  I started caring about computer security after Blaster came out.

Also, this was Windows 95.

I'm sorry but your a lying scuzz-bucket. You talk rubbish then make up things to back peddle out of it when you figure out we are not as stupid (or ignorant) as you take us for.

YOU ARE WELL AWARE THAT WE ARE TALKING ABOUT CURRENT INSTALLATIONS OF WINDOWS XP OR 2003!

Manip wrote:

I'm sorry but your a lying scuzz-bucket.

haha! Quote of the day!

I was merely clarifying my post above that this was a system in a different time period.

Did I ever claim you were stupid Manip? (though I have no clue how you would come to that conclusion)

EDIT: For Windows XP, I've had that on for a month and nothing noticeable happened. And what I was talking about with Windows 2k Pro, that was after XP came out (in other words, in the modern time period of virus/worms/etc..)

mVPstar