Re: Buy a PC at Best Buy today and plug it in - how long till I get a virus?

From: Jim Macklin (p51mustang[threeX12)
Date: 05/02/04 

Date: Sun, 2 May 2004 00:09:50 -0500

If you didn't turn on a firewall, 30 seconds for Blaster to
get you on broadband,

Maybe faster. 

-- 
The people think the Constitution protects their rights;
But government sees it as an obstacle to be overcome.
"BeamGuy" <nobody@spam.com> wrote in message
news:uU9kRJAMEHA.1272@tk2msftngp13.phx.gbl...
| Here is a hypothetical question...  If I were to go down
to best buy and
| buy a PC today, take it home, unbox it and plug it in how
long would it
| take before a virus found it's way to my computer?
|
| Lets assume it has a virus scanner included from the
manufacturer, but it
| has been in the box for 3 months so the virus definitions
are out of date.
| It clearly won't be sitting there polling constantly for
an internet connection,
| mine takes maybe 10 minutes after I have reboot to
determine that there is
| an internet connection and download the patches.... If it
is a 28K modem
| connection it could take quite some time to download the
whole upgrade,
| I could be without virus protection for maybe 30 minutes
or more even if
| I am on the ball and the vendor provided virus protection
in the box.
|
| And for system patches - lets assume I have read the news,
know that my
| system is wide open for exploitation as soon as it is
plugged into the internet and
| immediately start downloading the system patches.  With
broadband I might
| be lucky enough to finish patching the system before a
virus strikes, but these
| days I am getting hundreds of hits an hour on my firewall
mostly from viruses.
| It is more likely that my system will be compromised
before I can patch it,
| even if I am on the ball and do the right thing and
upgrade immediately instead
| of fooling around browing the web.
|
| --------------------
|
| Did I miss something, or is everyone who takes home a
computer tommorrow
| with a dialup modem going to have a virus on their machine
within 10 minutes
| of plugging it in? And those with high speed internet will
suffer the same unless
| they have a firewall router and read the manual in advance
to turn the firewall
| on.
|
|

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