5 ms·

I thought antivirus software existed merely to deal with flaws in Windows...

by talleyrand 14y ago

macspoofing 14y ago
You're being facetious, correct?
- enraged_camel 14y ago
  On the one hand, he must be facetious. Viruses existed long before Windows as an operating system was even conceptualized. Therefore it is ridiculous to claim that anti-virus software exists because of Windows alone. On the other hand, it is true that anti-virus software became a lot more popular as Windows gained market-share. The reason is simple: as we all know, for a long time Microsoft did not take security very seriously. They essentially followed what seems to be Adobe's current philosophy, which is "release first, secure later." Remember that it was only relatively recently that they started to rigorously plug holes on a very short turnaround (mostly weekly if not shorter). So it is not difficult to conceive of a perspective where anti-virus software existed (and still does) mostly to overcome some of the shortcomings of the OS.
  - zanny 14y ago
    I wouldn't call if facetious because today, the only reason any AV exists is because other software failed to sanitize itself against rogue agents. Viruses aren't some mystery or magic, you have to actively engage with a server that sends one to you (be it by actively engaging with the server, or having a vulnerable point of entry and a bad firewall), and either through vulnerabilities in the applications interacting over IP stacks, or through user ignorance in explicitly running a virus manually (and with enough escalated system privilege to do damage). It is easier to whitelist than blacklist. It is stupidly easy to embed a cipher in a binary, encrypt the actual payload, and have the execution context decode it back into its viral form. If you do that, you can tweak a knob, get an entirely different looking binary, and keep shipping out the same virus over and over.
lucian303 14y ago
Is that why it exists on non-win platforms also?
jimbobimbo 14y ago
While I understand that Windows' past does make it a convenient target for such remarks, most "viruses" now are not really viruses, but malware that either exploit holes in (mostly) third-party software, or goes after a human factor. Stricter security practices from Vista onwards (UAC, low-privileged user accounts by default, etc.) make Windows no easier target than Mac or *x, if social engineering involved. No anti-malware product will help if user is tricked into voluntary entering their credentials or credit card details.
- lucian303 14y ago
  The mass adoption (and with it, the mass misunderstanding/misconfiguration) of Windows makes it a much easier target than UNIX based platforms like OSX, GNU/Linux, FreeBSD, etc. That along with the horrible architecture of Windows systems that just about invites malware. Vista failed miserably in both architecture and privileges and in an attempt to fix that in Windows 7, the privilege of accounts is nullified as it was in XP. Speaking of XP, it's still the target of most malware and probably will be for some time as most Windows computers still run it (as opposed to 7/Vista/8).
  - jimbobimbo 14y ago
    "That along with the horrible architecture of Windows systems that just about invites malware. Vista failed miserably in both architecture and privileges and in an attempt to fix that in Windows 7, the privilege of accounts is nullified as it was in XP." The fact that third-party software tops malware charts and absence of Blaster, Sobig, Nimda, etc. kind of pandemics doesn't back up your claim.
- beagle3 14y ago
  If a site gets you to download an executable, it's now 3 mouse clicks to get it to run on an average desktop setup (As opposed to 0 in the Win2K days and 1 in the early XP days). In Unixes, it's still "open an xterm and chmod a+x executable". There's still a huge difference.
  - 14y ago

I thought antivirus software existed merely to deal with flaws in Windows...

macspoofing 14y ago

You're being facetious, correct?

enraged_camel 14y ago
On the one hand, he must be facetious. Viruses existed long before Windows as an operating system was even conceptualized. Therefore it is ridiculous to claim that anti-virus software exists because of Windows alone. On the other hand, it is true that anti-virus software became a lot more popular as Windows gained market-share. The reason is simple: as we all know, for a long time Microsoft did not take security very seriously. They essentially followed what seems to be Adobe's current philosophy, which is "release first, secure later." Remember that it was only relatively recently that they started to rigorously plug holes on a very short turnaround (mostly weekly if not shorter). So it is not difficult to conceive of a perspective where anti-virus software existed (and still does) mostly to overcome some of the shortcomings of the OS.
- zanny 14y ago
  I wouldn't call if facetious because today, the only reason any AV exists is because other software failed to sanitize itself against rogue agents. Viruses aren't some mystery or magic, you have to actively engage with a server that sends one to you (be it by actively engaging with the server, or having a vulnerable point of entry and a bad firewall), and either through vulnerabilities in the applications interacting over IP stacks, or through user ignorance in explicitly running a virus manually (and with enough escalated system privilege to do damage). It is easier to whitelist than blacklist. It is stupidly easy to embed a cipher in a binary, encrypt the actual payload, and have the execution context decode it back into its viral form. If you do that, you can tweak a knob, get an entirely different looking binary, and keep shipping out the same virus over and over.

lucian303 14y ago

Is that why it exists on non-win platforms also?

jimbobimbo 14y ago

While I understand that Windows' past does make it a convenient target for such remarks, most "viruses" now are not really viruses, but malware that either exploit holes in (mostly) third-party software, or goes after a human factor. Stricter security practices from Vista onwards (UAC, low-privileged user accounts by default, etc.) make Windows no easier target than Mac or *x, if social engineering involved. No anti-malware product will help if user is tricked into voluntary entering their credentials or credit card details.

lucian303 14y ago
The mass adoption (and with it, the mass misunderstanding/misconfiguration) of Windows makes it a much easier target than UNIX based platforms like OSX, GNU/Linux, FreeBSD, etc. That along with the horrible architecture of Windows systems that just about invites malware. Vista failed miserably in both architecture and privileges and in an attempt to fix that in Windows 7, the privilege of accounts is nullified as it was in XP. Speaking of XP, it's still the target of most malware and probably will be for some time as most Windows computers still run it (as opposed to 7/Vista/8).
- jimbobimbo 14y ago
  "That along with the horrible architecture of Windows systems that just about invites malware. Vista failed miserably in both architecture and privileges and in an attempt to fix that in Windows 7, the privilege of accounts is nullified as it was in XP." The fact that third-party software tops malware charts and absence of Blaster, Sobig, Nimda, etc. kind of pandemics doesn't back up your claim.
beagle3 14y ago
If a site gets you to download an executable, it's now 3 mouse clicks to get it to run on an average desktop setup (As opposed to 0 in the Win2K days and 1 in the early XP days). In Unixes, it's still "open an xterm and chmod a+x executable". There's still a huge difference.
- 14y ago