To all Window users

[mikeymike]

Right, Right, IE is horrible compaired to netscape.
In defense of MS$ you know they get picked on a lot.
If the hackers poured an equal effort into destroying debian Linux you would have a "very un-secure" operating system in debian linux.

Time to think up a new argument mate, two reasons: this one is poor and old :-)

Every major OS gets just as much attention as MS products do.  If you don't believe me, subscribe to bugtraq (a security vulnerability mailing list).  There's also NT-Bugtraq for more Windows-specific stuff, though it gets discussed on both lists.

There are more virus writers gunning for MS products, though for two reasons.  A) its popularity, but also B) because it's so damn easy.  You can run a truck through the security policy of Outlook/Express.  If a double filename extension doesn't do it, just add another one on the end, for example.  Then there's its MIME handling, there will be a number of vulns after the first along that line, because one subsystem handles the sanity-checking of the MIME type while another handles attachments based on name.  B'duh.

Actually, if you wanted to compare vuln for vuln with many Linux distros and Windows, you'll find the figures quite comparable.  Windows would be a pretty damn secure OS all round if IE, OE, MSNM, WMP and SMB (filesharing services) were removed on a default setup.  They are what makes it such an obvious target, and quite frankly, who needs them.  Certainly not everyone.  People who don't run these components on Windows as their default apps (or use SMB) only have to worry about one in 10, maybe 15 Windows vulnerabilities.

And instead of using Netscape, use what is currently in development (Netscape has been discontinued), which recent versions of Netscape was based on: Mozilla, Mozilla Firefox, and Mozilla Thunderbird.

[mikeymike]

Myself, I think MicroDollar had a play in the release of the code.

I think so as well.  This is what I posted about it yesterday on another forum:

Hmm, let me see, do we have all the bases covered:

* The code is really old (NT4 SP3 and Win2k SP1)
* MS wasn't hacked
* a box running something MS'y wasn't hacked

I say it's a stage-managed job from beginning to end. To look like those damn linux commie terrorist firesharing hackers wanted to get hold of some code, just like they did with SCO.

This post was constructed using elements of sarcasm.

:-)

[mikeymike]

ZoneAlarm is a gaping security hole.  

[mikeymike]

Glaucus wrote:

mikeymike wrote:
ZoneAlarm is a gaping security hole.  

huh?!? Why do you say that?!?

It has been victim to some of the most trivial and obvious exploits (that even I could exploit, and I have no programming skills or s'kiddie tools).

Perhaps you ought to read up on your preferred security tool before putting your trust in it.  www.securityfocus.com might be a good first stop, though googling for zonealarm vulnerabilities might also help.


It is a poor product.

My favourite of the vulnerabilities I read about it was one that, if an attacker attacked the system 'more than 200 times' (which is just a simple single port scan), zonealarm would crash, and the vulnerability allowed insertion of code into the memory space, which means an attacker could run any program they wanted.

Ok, so no program is perfect, but this is silly.  It's like the zillion vulnerabilities in Outlook/Express regarding file extensions, adding double of triple extensions on the end of attachments, and they'd walk straight past attachment security.  A firewall should be able to handle a port scan.  It is not a firewall otherwise.  It's a great big sign saying "NEWBIE HERE! TAKE OVER MY SYSTEM!".

Although the most amusing app for even the least knowledgable 'hacker' is Miribalis ICQ.  I must have remotely crashed that app about 20 times using different methods, sometimes trashing its local ICQ database in the process.  (I did this in a test environment btw - my job required testing Internet-talking apps a good deal more than others).

The only Windows firewall I've tried that seems to be half-decent, while not carrying along the kitchen sink is 8Signs Firewall.  Although I haven't finished testing it yet.

[mikeymike]

Anyway, the hole has been fixed. Why even bring it up?

/me shakes his head...

Right.  Go to www.securityfocus.com and search for the number of issues about ZoneAlarm in the past.

And AFAIK no other firewall has been quite so lame as to not withstand a portscan.  It's like the first thing anyone would do to try and get into your system.  Consider also that firewalls have been around a lot longer than ZoneAlarm, it's not like ZA is doing anything cutting-edge.  If they can't even cater for something so basic as that, then the rest of their code is likely to be very scary indeed.

ZoneAlarm was not anywhere the first on the market.  There are tonnes of other firewalls available out there, hardware or software ones, which have been around longer than ZA.  None have vulnerabilities as embarrassing as ZA's.

Ask anyone who knows anything about computer systems security whether they think ZA is any good, and they'll laugh.  Like this: :roflmao:

Your system's first line of defence needs to be a good one.  The worst thing that can happen is for the first line of defence to be the cause of a system compromise.