XP without firewall - gone in 30 seconds

Capt'n Midnight

http://www.nwc.securitypipeline.com/news/54201402

Not surprisingly, Windows XP SP1 sans third-party firewall had the poorest showing.

"In some instances, someone had taken complete control of the machine in as little as 30 seconds," said Marcus Colombano, a partner with AvanteGarde, and, along with former hacker Kevin Mitnick, a co-investigator in the experiment. "The average was just four minutes. Think about that. Plug in a new PC--and many are still sold with Windows XP SP1--to a DSL line, go get a cup of coffee, and come back to find your machine has been taken over."

Mac daddy

i have heard of four minutes but thirty secs jeez that is bloody fast

snappieT

I *heart* hackers...

Keeping me in business. 5 min zonealarm & MS antispyware install, cash in pocket.

Fionn

Good article!!
Pretty good point about hacker ignored platforms, as windows users become more security conscious, (will they?) it’s certainly possible that we’ll see more attacks on the likes of machines running Mac and “Nix” operating systems.

Anyone wanting to check out their system. I’m sure there are others available, these are the ones I’ve used from time to time


http://www.auditmypc.com/freescan/prefcan.asp

https://grc.com/x/ne.dll?bh0bkyd2

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/tools/mbsahome.mspx