On Fri, 2012-11-23 at 02:25 +0000, Chih-Cherng wrote: > Martin Gregorie <martin <at> gregorie.org> writes: > > > > > On Tue, 2012-11-20 at 01:26 +0000, Chih-Cherng wrote: > > > > > Notification help raise victims' security > > > awareness, and motivate them to fix vulnerabilites within their computers. > > > > > I have my doubts about this. I have friends who help at retiree's > > computer clubs and with disinfecting their friend's computers. > > > > The message I hear from them is that there are significant numbers of > > users who refuse to help themselves: they don't/won't update their > > system or their AV software, will click on anything, open any and all > > mail and who won't learn that this is stupid behaviour. The reinfection > > time for such gentry is about two weeks: it takes about that long before > > they show up whining that their computer has become very slow again so > > please do something about it. > > Having one's own computer compromised is not the privilege of old people. > Companies like Google, RSA, etc. all have been hacked and got their computers > infected with malware. > ...and they have corporate policies, blacklists, AV licenses and sysadmins to keep software and AV stuff updated and, hopefully, to notice the changed mail pattern due to a resident bot.
Besides "getting hacked" != cluelessly opening an infected e-mail that got into your inbox because your AV software is out of date or nonexistent. > Did they discover that immediately after being > compromised? No. And no current anti-virus can detect every malware in > existence. > Yes, but you evidently didn't read what I wrote: that there are PC users out there that are not only too clueless to make any attempt to protect their computer, but don't even take precautions after their PC has been infected and cleaned up. They typically don't even realise it was infected, just that "its got very slow: can't you make it go faster". > I think more reporting/notifications should be done, which inform the victims > , > computer-literate or not, of something wrong with their computers. There > have > already been many data collection about botnets and other security threats, > but > not enough information sharing and event reporting is being done. > How does that work then? If they won't install service packs or keep their AV software licensed and updated, what makes you think they'll change their habits enough read or act on warnings about malware? Bear in mind that some of these are educated people: one of the worst repeat offenders I know is a retired teacher. Martin
