Comments on: Should You be Worried About Online Videos?

By: ECA

ECA — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 21:03:27 +0000

16,
Its not just porn sites…
I sent a letter to MSN, after getting 5 virus and 17 bots on NEW install. Its from adverts, Quicktime, Java, and others… I suggested they start AV and anti bot the Adverts they pull in…1 year later they CUT all adverts(cool) because the adverts were the cause.

Ever hit a site that says…You cant see this site, you dont have IE, Java, ActiveX, quicktime….
Its a shame, that ALL this crap comes from EVERYWHERE, and not just porn sites.

By: Lauren the Ghoti

Lauren the Ghoti — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 20:58:55 +0000

No matter how devious, how clever the scumbags who live to devise ways of getting malware onto your computer are – they’re all pikers and pathetic also-rans next to the genius who concocted the most utterly diabolical method yet for delivery of the most insidious piece of malware ever – unsuspecting users not only install it voluntarily, they actually pay for the privilege! He simply puts it in a fancy box labelled “Windows Vista” and the victims do the rest.

I tell ya, Lex Luthor ain’t got nothin’ on that boy!

By: mark

mark — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 16:20:40 +0000

15, Anyone that would download ANY executable file from ANY porn site is a moran and deserves exactly what they get.

By: Glenn E

Glenn E — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 14:43:36 +0000

#13 – the trick is that certain sites (mainly porn) announce that you must download THEIR player, in order to view some video clip. As if all the standard video player aren’t good enough. Or implying that whatever you’ve got is one version behind. So the novice downloads and installs the bogus player, with a single click. And if they’re running in Admin level, as M$ seems to encourage all the time, their puter is then infected by the “player”, not the video file itself. Best advice is to never download a player from an untrusted site, that doesn’t tell you what player (or version) it is, or not offer any links to a trusted site to get same. Because most likely it’s a totally bogus player.

By: Bill Gates

Bill Gates — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 11:45:25 +0000

#5
Your check is in the mail, keep up the good work!
That is all.

By: Uncle Patso

Uncle Patso — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 11:32:06 +0000

It completely escapes me how a graphic file, whether video or still, can lead to infection by malware. How brain-damaged is it to make a player program that is susceptible to that? What’s next, text viruses? Trojans embedded in UPC bar codes?

By: LBalsam

LBalsam — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 11:00:34 +0000

ZoneAlarm has just come out with the beta of a product to prevent this from happening.

Since it is a beta it is currently free, it is called ForceFIeld.

I just installed it on a Vista machine with no problems.

http://www.zonealarm.com

By: Major Jizz

Major Jizz — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 08:40:37 +0000

The dollar symbol in M$ is soooo 1999…

By: gquaglia

gquaglia — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 03:02:05 +0000

#5 Way to go you M$ shill.

By: OmarTheAlien

OmarTheAlien — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 02:42:55 +0000

I must be out of the loop, somehow: XP Pro, Firefox, Quicktime and a bunch of other stuff, NO anti-virus (lotsa hype, does more harm than good) and Comodo firewall. Of course, my ISP filters, my router filters, and I use common sense (sometimes) on what I click on. Do I have viruses? Hell, I don’t know, everything works about like it should, and about the expected speed. Am I part of a botnet? I doubt it, as both DSL and router activity lights are in direct line of sight and I think I’d notice any untoward activity. When unattended (bedtime/worktime) the system is shutdown, completely.
The computer security people are becoming like the drug companies, scaring the hell out of everybody trying to sell all kinds of crap that may or may not be any good. And just like with your health, you can worry yourself to death about whether your going to die, or not.
Of course, this is my home system, and I’m the only user. At work I walk the true walk, with firewalls and active anti-virus subscriptions. Firefox is the only browser, and I keep the network tied down fairly close.

By: Milo

Milo — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 02:32:05 +0000

Always ask, who benefits?

Seems to me that ol’ time TV benefits here.

BTW FF with Ubuntu (all scripts and flash blocked by default, no QT) for me. They can do their worst.

By: Jägermeister

Jägermeister — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 02:27:37 +0000

And another thing GregA…

Firefox 2: 15 Secunia advisories, 40% unpatched
IE 7: 18 Secunia advisories, 56% unpatched

By: Jägermeister

Jägermeister — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 02:14:15 +0000

#4 – GregA – Also, the two top vectors (so don’t install them) for virus transmission are Quicktime and Firefox.

It has already been fixed bozo.

By: GregA

GregA — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 02:05:14 +0000

Wow, bad year for computer security… With the release of Vista and all. Also, the two top vectors (so don’t install them) for virus transmission are Quicktime and Firefox.

Also, so far Vista is unaffected by these issues, even if you are running Quicktime and Firefox.

So stick with Vista+ie7+wmp11 and you will be perfectly safe. All others need worry.

By: hhopper

hhopper — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 01:36:01 +0000

I just bought a Dell and checked the no installed software button. It came without all the crap on it.