Re: Partitioning,multibooting etc and security

From: David from Sydney (davidfromsydney@yahoo.com.au)
Date: 03/07/03 

From: "David from Sydney" <davidfromsydney@yahoo.com.au>
Date: Sat, 8 Mar 2003 08:50:51 +1100

Robert
Thanks for reply.
The obvious follow up question ....Does restricting access or encrypting
data stop viruses and/or hackers?Would such 'barring' prevent destruction of
data (I.e the virus or hacker could not access data but might destroy it in
the attempt)?Can you specify what programs or users can access data thereby
excluding viruses or hackers?
Thanks again
David

"Robert Moir" <bofh@mvps.org> wrote in message
news:#qNivAP5CHA.1852@TK2MSFTNGP09.phx.gbl...
| 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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