Discussion on:

10 things I've learned from working in IT

Had plenty of hot fixes from Redmond do great and terrible things to their own OS, services and client software (I'm looking at you Office/Exchange/IIS)!

I would proffer the following -

2a - the fewer services you lay on any OS the more stable it is.

No matter what anti-virus one uses, it certainly is just a matter of time before their machine becomes infected (item #3). Without a proper backup (item #5), your data is quite possibly lost for good. Seems that most folks (and businesses) feel that the right approach is to gamble with their data. The "so far, so good" approach. With the recent news of many companies having been hacked and their data compromised such as Linkedin, and that gaming company, Blizzard, for example, I'd think people would sit up and take notice. Maybe.

... until my PC is infected? I've been waiting about 19 years now for this "inevitability" and it still hasn't occurred.

With this attitude, "for how long". Welcome to an unknown unknown.

Research suggests about 80% of Windows machines are infected.

What percentage of Linux machines would you say are infected? :-D

I run Kubuntu on my work laptop (my business reason is that I need Eclipse, which is happiest in Linux). I run ten different Linux devices at home.

All squeaky-clean, and not just because Linux is a better OS. Social engineering is still a risk, but I've received IT security training, and have passed the good advice on to my wife, who is careful and aware.

The install base for Linux is so small that it is not a prime target plus there probably aren't any reliable numbers since most linux users don't install anti-virus software. So, unless something breaks a linux user wouldn't know they are even infected.

Bill

And didn't he say in #7 "The Linux platform is still hindered by FUD"? I guess you must be one of those perpetratiors, or you're simply one of those reicked into believing that long trotted-out piece of FUD. Linux is secure because it's *designed* to be secure, while MSWindows is hackable because it's designed to be hackable.

I like Linux and use it quite a bit, and have done so since the earliest versions of Slackware and Red Hat. Since it's source code is public domain, it is actually les "secure" to a hacker than MS Windows "by design", however there are many very resourceful and well funded groups (mostly foriegn) who are constantly attacking the Windows platform--because that's where most of the most valuable and marketable data can be accessed .

The vast majority of recent exploits in both Windows and Linux have all been the result of insecurities in third-party applications. The difference between Windows and Linux is that the exploits quite often compromise Windows itself, allowing privilege escalation and potential major damage, whereas Linux more often limits damage to the current user's profile and privilege level.

Okay, maybe it is the OS...

What research are you refering to and what does Research suggests . . ." mean? I find it highly unlikely that at any given point in time 80% of Windows computers are infected.

Besides, this article is probably discussing businesses. I know of no business who has been free of malware. Some have very low occurrences, and most of those are innocuous, while others have quite high rates of infection. Those w/ little problems in this regard have the same things in common: Discipline (as in don't surf porn, or download illegally), no admin rights locally, and web content/malware filters in use.

You've been running the same PC for 19 years? I bet that thing is a nice machine.

I'm guessing you've been infected multiple times, you just never knew it.

There are 6 PCs in that timeframe, and none of them have been infected with anything. I have run scans at times to check, and they have been clean.

It's all about how you use the PC.

Duh, you have to plug it into the network.

How did you avoid the blaster worm?
I remember doing a reinstall of windows and my PC was infected the moment I plugged in the network to install updates.

Use an already-patched PC to download the updates for off-line installation.

5th and 10th point are soooo true...

That was a great read, and I agree with you whole-heartedly.

No matter how carefully you plan and how diligently you backup your system, the backup will NOT load!!!

But the time to learn that is when you test your backups BEFORE they are needed.

under VITA they did an audit of agencies. Unfortunately they asked the question "Are you performing backups routinely?" and left it at that. The obvious followup question should have been "Do you routinely restore/test your backups?"

I've seen plenty of "good" backups fail to restore. If you have a business, you should be doing a business continuity test annually. We just had a customer loose an Exchange VM and the restore wasn't pretty, I'm glad someone else worked on that one.

and system recovery scenarios. Been there and got the T-Shirt!