energetic
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Computers that have not been upgraded with the last patches and are still connecting on the Internet will function on an average of 20 minutes just before they succumb in attacks, warns the Internet Storm Center in the USA.
In 2003, the corresponding estimate for the "time of survival" was 40 minutes.
The ascertainment is worrying, since in most cases 20 minutes is not enough in order to downoad the latest essential patch for the system and the programs of anti-virus protection in some cases.
Internet Storm Center, that is in the education and the research on issues of safety on computers, indirectly measured the time of survival: It watched addresses IP that were not used and recorded reports of any chance and efforts of communication with these addresses.
"If we suppose that this reports are produced by worms that are trying to be multiplied, a system that is not updated would be polluted" a statement of the Centre reports.
"It is a difficult problem and becomes always more difficult" Scott Condy says, administrator of network in the University of Massachusetts in Amherst.
Collaborators of Condy checked the ascertainments of the Centre connecting in the network of university two PC' s in which they had not been installed with the latest patch. Both of them were attacked and infected in 20 minutes.
The time of survival is bigger if the access provider (ISP) watches with a protective software the channels of data that are usually used by aggressive programs.
"From the other hand, the networks of universities and Internet users of high speed connections often become a target with more efforts of scanning any chance of exposed safety" the Centre clarifies.
The statement recommends to Windows users to suspend the commonly used files and activating a firewall.
Unfortunately, the forecasts for the future are ominous. Fred Boumhard, adviser of safety in Microsoft, recently announced in a meeting for programmers that in the future viruses and worms will be impossible to be fought with updates.
"No one will have the time to detect them. No one will have the time to produce a patch or virus updates, even the description of the virus.
The only solution, according Boumhard, it is to develope intelligent systems that are not simple programmed to fight against threats, but to defend every individual attack and to be adopted into the Internet.
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[ This Message was edited by: energetic on 2004-08-18 16:22 ] |
Posted: 2004-08-18 17:19
