is windows insecure by default?

It's probably the main more common viruses stored on the disk. To keep a defs file that would track every virus would mean multiple diskettes being swapped in and out. Since we are seeing many of the same viruses/worms over and over again (ie., MyDoom, SoBig, Sasser, etc.) it saves on some time by going after those ones since that's what most people would be affected with today. It'd be rare to see someone infected with .. say... NATAS (a particularly nasty MBR virus I remember being infected with once due to a shrink wrapped diagnostic diskette from 3Com being originally infected)

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Isn't there more than 100,000?
Or is that 726 'active' viruses?

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LOL. He's talking about back in the day. 5.25" disks are not in use anymore...they're the huge, thin floppies. When these disks were in use, 726 viruses was a lot. Stick around, you'll learn nihilish one of these days :).


This really feels like one of those "Windows sux, linux is better" threads to me. Every operating system is as secure as the user allows it to be (knowingly, or unknowingly). This has been discussed over and over in AO. Lets wait for Longhorn and see what that is going to bring.

I think rcgreen has expressed my feelings very lucidly.

We tend to overlook the historical aspects and the effects of legacy architecture in operating systems. Just look at the development patterns:

Win 3.x
Win 95
Win 98
Win98SE
Win ME
WinXP

Yet the next OS (Longhorn) will be several years in development, because of the architectural changes I suppose?

I have just reached down to the bottom shelf of my workstation and picked up a copy of Red Hat Linux 5.2 (May 1999)..................now I wonder how secure that would be "out of the box" :eek:

Hah! some more........... Linux Pro v5.4 "Personal Workstation/Powerful Server".........Red Hat 6.1........S.u.S.E. 6.2....................

In my workshop I have an Acorn Archimedes.............now that IS a secure box............only 114 known viruses, and how many Skiddies can even spell the RISC OS, let alone hack it :D

Cope57, that is an old 5.25" floppy that goes back to the 1980's. There were only 726 viruses then! (mostly boot sector, with the odd file infector (.exe, .com)

You are right, there are probably 100,000 now. The number depends on whether you use "family" names, and whether you include all the very old viruses that probably would not run on a modern OS?

I find this an interesting topic, but am a little surprised that people seem to expect OSes to be "secure" when they hark back to an era when that was not really an issue.

When I look at older OSes, I tend to follow the views of fellow history buffs such as Gore, we look at stability, performance, ease of use and resource requirements.

Otherwise I will be criticising the Wright Brothers for not fitting afterburners and a HUD :p

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Win 3.x
Win 95
Win 98
Win98SE
Win ME
WinXP

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No windows 2000?

Or Windows NT/2003?

IMO, Windows NT, 2000, 2003 and XP are all attempts by Microsoft to slowly introduce security to a work environment as well as general users (ala WinXP Home). Change is often viewed as a scary thing and users are very slow to response and do what things we really want them to do. The idea of "I don't have anything worthwhile to steal" is still out there. Heck, even students taking computer courses at my college -- when I went to speak to them about it (in semesters earlier than the ones I teach) -- have that belief. "Oh.. I'm just a student. Who cares?"

The reality is, however, regardless of whether it's a home user or a large corporation, security isn't paid attention to until a major violation has occurred and/or it appears in the media. Case in point, recent CIBC fax boo-boo (and notice that this specific security breach had little to do with computers -- most security breaches have everything to do with the user/admin/programmer than the OS it affects).

So companies and individuals will continue on their merry way as long as it's stable and they can access what they want, humming "We don't have anything to steal, hi-ho.."

What a newbie like me thinks is that both OS: Windows and Linux are insecure.
The problem are the hackers.
A hacker mostly hates Windows beacuse he must pay for it and he can't make an improvement on it( change things in system files).
People likes to do what they want not to be restricted) And they start to make viruses that damege windows. And later they say windows is BAD system. But if a good hacker try to make virus for Linux he is also having succes.
But the hackers that are making viruses for Windows are 1000 times more than the hackers which make viruses for Linux.

Cybr~ and MsM,

I was restricting my comments to stand alone or "home" distributions of Windows.

In parallel you had:

Win 3.11 for workgroups
NT 3.51
NT 4.0 (various SPs)
NT 5.0 (Win 2000)
XP Pro
Win 2003

I was hoping to demonstrate that the home editions were just the "latest models", and that there was no fundamental architectural redesign. Hence, no fundamental improvement in security.

If you get a copy of NT 4.0, take a look in the Windows System32 folder. You will find 4 files with a .bas extension............."gorillas" is one of them
:D

Those are Quickbasic files, and that shipped with DOS 5.0!!! Microsoft were trying to develop NT 4.0 and Win 95 at the same time.............they didn't have the resource, so the NT guys borrowed code from the Win 95 team.............who were building an improvement to Win 3.X, that was DOS based. They did not understand those files and left them there!

It is hardly surprising that there were no great security improvements? Microsoft were aiming at a "home" and a "business" marketplace, and until XP, kept the two separate. I guess that would seriously dilute their resources?

I still believe that the most secure operating system is the one that YOU understand.