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There are "active" threat classes (worms, and human attackers explicitly running intrusion exploits) that can infect your computer while it is sitting idle, you

by derefr 4y ago

There are "active" threat classes (worms, and human attackers explicitly running intrusion exploits) that can infect your computer while it is sitting idle, you know. What would you prefer: coming back to find your computer has joined a botnet while you were gone; or coming back to find your computer was restarted while you were gone, to avoid joining a botnet?

jacquesm 4y ago
I would prefer to find it as I left it. And in 45 years of using computers this has always been the case. But then againg, I haven't used windows in more than two decades now, other than a single box here that talks to an older mixer and that machine doesn't even have an internet connection, I treat it as part of the mixer.
- derefr 4y ago
  > And in 45 years of using computers this has always been the case Yes, because you presumably do your computing mostly behind some kind of NAT most of the time, and without any un-patched devices hanging out on the same LAN segment, and so there's no path for worms to have ever reached you by. That's not necessary true for the average computer user, though, who connects to shared wired or wireless networks at an office/coworking space/internet cafe/university campus/etc. Those that do this may end up with either/both of 1. a public-routable (usually IPv6) address for bots and worms to talk to, and 2. a link on a multicast-routable subnet with other already-infected devices. Also, a few years after you stopped using Windows, cryptocurrency was invented, which "changed the game" for cybercriminals in a lot of ways. Fun, meaningless, low-penetration cyberthreats don't exist any more; as "hacking groups" are now motivated by "real money" to get root on every PC they can so they can deploy crypto-miner background services, encrypt files and hold them for (cryptocurrency) ransom, exfiltrate the user's own crypto-wallet private keys, etc.

by derefr 4y ago

jacquesm 4y ago

I would prefer to find it as I left it. And in 45 years of using computers this has always been the case. But then againg, I haven't used windows in more than two decades now, other than a single box here that talks to an older mixer and that machine doesn't even have an internet connection, I treat it as part of the mixer.

derefr 4y ago
> And in 45 years of using computers this has always been the case Yes, because you presumably do your computing mostly behind some kind of NAT most of the time, and without any un-patched devices hanging out on the same LAN segment, and so there's no path for worms to have ever reached you by. That's not necessary true for the average computer user, though, who connects to shared wired or wireless networks at an office/coworking space/internet cafe/university campus/etc. Those that do this may end up with either/both of 1. a public-routable (usually IPv6) address for bots and worms to talk to, and 2. a link on a multicast-routable subnet with other already-infected devices. Also, a few years after you stopped using Windows, cryptocurrency was invented, which "changed the game" for cybercriminals in a lot of ways. Fun, meaningless, low-penetration cyberthreats don't exist any more; as "hacking groups" are now motivated by "real money" to get root on every PC they can so they can deploy crypto-miner background services, encrypt files and hold them for (cryptocurrency) ransom, exfiltrate the user's own crypto-wallet private keys, etc.