Re: Partitioning,multibooting etc and security

From: Robert Moir (bofh@mvps.org)
Date: 03/07/03 

From: "Robert Moir" <bofh@mvps.org>
Date: Fri, 7 Mar 2003 21:26:13 -0000

David from Sydney wrote:
> Hi Everyone,
> 1) Does placing data or programs on their own partition reduce or
> protect against attack from viruses,worms,trojans etc.?

Not really. A virus is a computer program and therefore has access to
anything you alllow computer programs on your system to access. Which
generally includes all the disks ;-)

A good few virus and trojans do not go looking for different partitions if
they want to trash something, they generally trash the first partition on
the disk or the OS partition. So you might gain some protection but you have
to be aware this is just leaving things to chance.

> 2)Does placing data or programs on their own partition reduce or
> protect against attack from hackers?

Perhaps. Depends on the method of breaking into your system the hacker is
using. It's standard operating procedure for web servers, for example,
because many of the exploits that affect web servers give access to only the
partition used to store the web content.

It's not, however, going to help if a hacker tricks you into installing a
program on your machine that gives them full remote control of your system.

> 3)Does booting into a separate instance of XP(or other OS) for
> surfing the Web reduce or protect against attack from
> viruses,worms,trojans etc.?

Not in my opinion. This is just a refinement of the ideas expressed in parts
1 & 2, and I've already explained why those ideas are limited.

> 4)Does booting into a separate instance
> of XP(or other OS) for surfing the Web reduce or protect against
> attack from hackers? TIA

Not in my opinion. This is just a refinement of the ideas expressed in parts
1 & 2, and I've already explained why those ideas are limited. 

--
--
Robert Moir, Microsoft Windows MVP
To search the MS Knowledge base use the link below:
http://support.microsoft.com/support/search/c.asp?PSL=1
My Homepage - http://www.robertmoir.co.uk
** Emailed questions will not be answered **

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