14 August 2007

Free Users Need Control!

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From...

http://www.spywarepoint.com/forums/t26963-p7-microsoft-zero-day-security-holes-being-exploited.html

On Tue, 26 Sep 2006 07:46:22 -0400, "karl levinson, mvp"

>All operating systems do that. They are designed to launch code at boot
>time by reading registry values, text files, etc. Because those registry
>values are protected from unauthorized access by permissions, someone would
>have to already own your system to modify those values, wouldn't they?


Sure, but the wrong entities come to own systems all the time. Defense in depth means planning for how you get your system back; you don't just faint in shock and horror that you're owned, and destroy the whole system as the only way to kill the invader.

It's tougher for pro-IT, because they've long been tempted into breaking the rule about never letting anything trump the user at the keyboard. By now, they need remote access and admin, as well as automation that can be slid past the user who is not supposed to have the power to block it, in terms of the business structure.

But the rest of us don't have to be crippled by pro-IT's addiction to central and remote administration, any more than a peacetime urban motorist needs an 88mm cannon in a roof-top turret. We need to be empowered to physically get into our systems, and identify and rip out every automated or remotely-intruded PoS that's got into the system.

It's absolutely pathetic to have to tell posters "well, maybe you have 'difficult' (i.e., compitently-written) malware; there's nothing you can do, 'just' wipe and re-install" because our toolkit is bare.

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