Hello Anthony, On Sun, 3 Apr 2005 22:38:33 +0200 GMT (04/04/2005, 03:38 +0700 GMT), Anthony G. Atkielski wrote:
AGA> Antivirus products, generally speaking, are inferior substitutes for AGA> safe computing practices. They are better than nothing. AGA> The only threats that truly justify automated protections are those AGA> involving bugs in the software of which you are not aware. This is the AGA> principle behind use of a firewall. If your system is properly AGA> configured, you theoretically don't need a firewall; but if your OS AGA> contains bugs, it's possible that an adversary might compromise your AGA> system through legitimate channels by taking advantage of the bug. Firewalls have nothing to do with AV software. AGA> If you don't open attachments, and you configure your browser to AGA> disallow active content, and you block all incoming ports that are a AGA> potential security risk (you can essentially block _all_ ports on a PC AGA> that is used only as a client machine), you can be safe, with or without AGA> an A/V product. Correct, but impractical. I receive Excel files with executable code in the office. These are legit, and I need to open them. How would I know whether one is infected with a virus? - Only by scanning it. >> What the situation really "demands" is a bit of end user education, >> and there's just no way around it; regardless of how many bits of >> AV/AT software someone might want to run concurrently (or even having >> only one running on-access and the other just being available for >> on-demand scanning). AGA> Yes. Conversely, with enough user education, you don't need the A/V AGA> software at all. Please educate me how to tell an infected file from a clean one without a virus scanner. -- Cheers, Thomas. Things You Would Never Know Without the Movies: Most laptop computers are powerful enough to override the communication systems of any invading alien civilization. Message reply created with The Bat! 3.0.2.10 under Windows XP 5.1 Build 2600Service Pack 2 ________________________________________________ Current version is 3.0.1.33 | 'Using TBUDL' information: http://www.silverstones.com/thebat/TBUDLInfo.html
