turnorburn
Member
- Nov 21, 2007
- 8,713
- 462
As for spreading fear, that's true to a degree. And I will address that shortly, but in all fairness, there are people out there who may be less informed or socially engineered enough to download something they should not thus getting a disproportionate amount of malware, thus feeling guilty, but they should not! There's still easy ways to get viruses (I should say malware) without being tricked --- very easy. There was nobody more paranoid and informed than I was, and yet I will cite 5 easy ways to get viruses that actually happened to me:
1) Reading an email. That's it!!! So I disabled my preview pane helped, but then thereafter I read ALL unknown emails in the source code while walking on eggshells. Now tell me, is that normal? What's email for?
2) Looking at picture on the Internet. We had rats at work, so I wanted to get informed about them and looked up a picture and went to a legit sounding website. Nothing weird sounding that gives them away. Just normal sounding --- got a virus.
3) In my Microsofting days, I got a virus from this forum, fortunately not severe. Another poster warned the site was infected, so I just HOVERED (not clicked) my cursor over the link to type that into my Android tablet and go there. STILL got a virus on the Microsoft machine without clicking. The Android managed just fine, but I could see that there were lots of pop-ups that would render Microsoft useless. (Malware ads in flash can also do something like this, so it may have been a coincidence)
4) Mistyping in the address bar. Like goggle instead of google dot com. Malware writers capitalize on mistyping names close to popular web sites. So I had to walk again on eggshells and watch everything I type. And to top it off, Microsoft seems to have so much junk running in the background that it seems to reverse or delete letters if you type too fast. That's why you see people spelling "the" as "teh" all the time whereas I don't have this issue on other operating systems -- at least not to the same degree. So if the operating system does not keep your typing in line, then this mistyping is a common incident.
5) Browser jumping. How many times have you thought it was loaded, and then try to click on a link only to have the browser jump and you accidentally click on another malware link below it? Oh, my Linux jumps too, but I won't get Malware if I click on a malware link. But with MS, heaven forbid if you type on "Mickey's girl fun place" or to that effect --- you'll be spending hours cleaning it out. With the other operating systems, I'd just be entertained, and then repent later.
Now as you can see, the 5 ways above are drive-by's where the user did not consent to installing any software. It just happens and I dare any other operating system get malware like this except for Microsoft. The others you have to consciously consent to installing malware (e.g. by social engineering) and technically that is not a virus, but a Trojan.
So, tell me what my transgression was in the above examples, or where I was careless?
As for spreading fear, my biggest gripes aren't against warning people about the virus effects with Microsoft, but lame-brained reporters that are quick with glee to report Apple, Android or Linux malware. Even though Microsoft gets viruses something like 1,000,000 to one of theirs, they scare the people into thinking they need malware protection on their tablets, phones or whatever just because Microsoft gets malware at a drop of a hat. I tell people don't bother. There is where you simply watch what you download (Trojans) but the solution if it is a Trojan is to simply delete it. Back to normal then. I never personally known anyone who got Linux, Apple or Android malware, just as I never personally known anyone who died in an airplane crash. That's how rare it is. But with Microsoft, I've never known a single person who did not get malware on their machines, usually several times a year. And then we wonder why I constantly rail against them?
tob
