Perhaps my job has made me jaded and cynical, but is anyone else uneasy with the current position of the swiss cheese of security that is the Windows operating system?
It touches the lives of most people on a daily basis. I have not stats to site…I’m purely making an observation based on my experiences. Most people either have a Windows machine, know someone who does, or works for someone who does.
Most people who have Windows machines at least know enough to run Norton. Many are even know setting up personal firewall software, and as soon as they figure out how to configure their settings so as not to fire off abuse complaints about their own services and processes, their reports can be actually usefull.
However, the daily flow of virus morphs continually set the bar higher and higher…and the viruses get stealthier and more complex. Detection and removal becomes more and more technical for the end user. The knowlege gap between the people who purchase and use hardware/software/services and the people who can easily become unauthorized users of that hardware/software/service…gets wider and wider.
A well-planned trojan can easily be used in virtually any type of DDoS attack imaginable, with a fair amount of success, and there are enough ignorant and infectable machines out there to keep trying untill “they” find the magic combination.
The important variables become who are “they”, and what would “they” do with that magic bullet?
I am not saying that I have no faith in our benevolent or even neutral hackers…I just think they are overshadowed by the lure of money and the amount of people who are willing to do whatever they can to get it.
Curious as to what other dopers think…