Any need for virus scanners anymore?
- Thread starter PMKeates
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I wouldnt consider a BThomehub a firewall tbh
But then lets be honest here, thats an attack on a router that has to be carried out prior to trying to infect and a very small subset of routers in the grand scheme of things. If you have an exploit that can gain control of a remote machine automatically already you would probably be building up a pretty sizable botnet and not give a crap about the few extra hosts you might get from adding automated attacking of a particulary model of router
So this would only really come into play in the case of someone directly trying to hack your machine behind a router, they would still have to get past a local firewall so what good would AV do you exactly? any serious hacking attempt wouldnt be affected by AV
The point you are trying to make is fairly moot, and again as i say... an acceptable risk. considering theres no real reason for anyone to want to spend that much effort trying to hack my pc specifically
But then lets be honest here, thats an attack on a router that has to be carried out prior to trying to infect and a very small subset of routers in the grand scheme of things. If you have an exploit that can gain control of a remote machine automatically already you would probably be building up a pretty sizable botnet and not give a crap about the few extra hosts you might get from adding automated attacking of a particulary model of router
So this would only really come into play in the case of someone directly trying to hack your machine behind a router, they would still have to get past a local firewall so what good would AV do you exactly? any serious hacking attempt wouldnt be affected by AV
The point you are trying to make is fairly moot, and again as i say... an acceptable risk. considering theres no real reason for anyone to want to spend that much effort trying to hack my pc specifically
Man of Honour
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That's brillaint eXor, thank you very much.
Though, I'm having a problem with the above. Sorry for my lack of knowledge on the subject but what's the command for passing a password in a shortcut?
Thanks again.
PsExec.
Download and extract psexec.exe to a directory of your choosing. I used 'C:\Program Files\PsTools'
Shortcut:
It doesn't behave as expected. Runas respects the directory integrity levels and only allows downloads to low integrity directories.
With psexec, I was able to save to any directory under 'C:\User\lisa.web'
I don't know how it works under the hood. Maybe it does something slightly different with the tokens.
Others may find the trade-off acceptable.
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Man of Honour
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Thanks for that.
Right, I have just started from the begining but running into a bit of an issue.
I log into fred (lisa), type the above commands in but it brings up an erro saying:
The folder "C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe" specified in the Start In box is not valid.
Edit - Sorry eXor, ignore the above, me being silly. I somehow added the firefox.exe part to it.
It's like saying you don't need a seatbelt because you're a careful driver.
And the cpu cycles/ram usage argument does not work anymore, has not done for years too.
During the 157hrs of uptime on my PC my AV resident scanner engine has consumed a total of 16minutes of (general) CPU time.
That kind of figure is so small you'd not notice the difference unless your pc was from the year 2000, probably even earlier.
It's pretty important to have an AV scanner that's flush fit with your usage habits and in this instance something like AVAST or the new MS Morro is just the ticket. Or even AntiVIR.
And the cpu cycles/ram usage argument does not work anymore, has not done for years too.
During the 157hrs of uptime on my PC my AV resident scanner engine has consumed a total of 16minutes of (general) CPU time.
That kind of figure is so small you'd not notice the difference unless your pc was from the year 2000, probably even earlier.
It's pretty important to have an AV scanner that's flush fit with your usage habits and in this instance something like AVAST or the new MS Morro is just the ticket. Or even AntiVIR.
Man of Honour
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Sorry.
I noticed that earlier and amended my post.
It should read :
Hehehe.
When I first read your post, I saved it all into a word document. I then referred back to the thread and caught your edit and then went ahead with editing the shortcut. When I started from the beginning though, I referred back to that word document which obviously still included the "firefox.exe" part at the end.
Sorry, silly me.
Right, sorry to be a pain but I'm not entirely sure on what you mean by the following:
eXor said:
Specifically the shortcut part. Which shortcut?
my brother in-law works for barclays doing IT stuff.
he has mentioned to be many times he dont have anti virus on hes home pc, as his router/firewall/os system take care of things.
according to his records he has not had any anti virus for nearly 2 years and his pc + laptop run fine.
i use bit defender, after testing several anti virus software. inclduing nod32, avg, avira and kasperspy.
i think it also depends on the sites you visit, if you know what i mean. ^^
i personally wouldnt surf without my firewall enabled and my anti virus software up to date.
he has mentioned to be many times he dont have anti virus on hes home pc, as his router/firewall/os system take care of things.
according to his records he has not had any anti virus for nearly 2 years and his pc + laptop run fine.
i use bit defender, after testing several anti virus software. inclduing nod32, avg, avira and kasperspy.
i think it also depends on the sites you visit, if you know what i mean. ^^
i personally wouldnt surf without my firewall enabled and my anti virus software up to date.
The shortcut ( icon ) that launches Firefox?
Right Click the icon --> Properties --> 'Shortcut' tab
Man of Honour
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The shortcut ( icon ) that launches Firefox?
Right Click the icon --> Properties --> 'Shortcut' tab
Ah right, I see.
I was thinking you use it via another shortcut and leave the Mozilla Firefox shortcut as you had edited it. After I have edited the shortcut of Mozilla Firefox, it doesn't seem to be launching. It just seems to launch what appears to be a command prompt. Though, it only stays on the screen for about half a second.
I very much apologies for dragging this on.
1:32 am?
Something's not quite right there. If you open a command prompt and type the contents of the shortcut 'Target', then it stays open and you can see any error messages that pop up.
Are you using runas or psexec? Might be an idea to highlight and paste the contents of your shortcut 'Target' / 'Start in' here.
Man of Honour
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Hi eXor,
Sorry for the late reply.
This is what happens when I type the Target into a command prompt:
Target : C:\Windows\System32\runas /user:fred.web “cmd /c start \“\“\“C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Firefox\Firefox.exe\”
Start in : C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Firefox
Sorry for the late reply.
This is what happens when I type the Target into a command prompt:
Target : C:\Windows\System32\runas /user:fred.web “cmd /c start \“\“\“C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Firefox\Firefox.exe\”
Start in : C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Firefox
Holy thread revival. Are you on dial-up?
"Target : " and "Start in : " are shortcut dialog box labels. You don't type them into a command prompt.
Man of Honour
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Holy thread revival. Are you on dial-up?
Fortunately, I'm not on dial-up. It certainly feels like it some times though.
Yep, I haven't typed them into the command prompt. I was just highlighting which one was which.
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Yep, I haven't typed them into the command prompt. I was just highlighting which one was which.
It seems like there was some quote character weirdness with whichever editor I pasted those commands from.
" vs “ vs ”. Subtle difference. We want "non italic", for lack of a better term, quotes.
It should read :
YES, although are you suggesting that if i get a virus on my pc im likely to die or suffer severe mutilation?, stepping out your front door is a risk as a bus might mount the curb and smush you against the front of your house. Everything is a risk to some extent but heres the thing, its just a pc i know how to avoid the issue in he first place and heck should i get caught out because i let someone who doesnt know what they are doing use the pc, well ill just remove said virus, or if its troublesome build it. Hardly worth a tinfoil hat or some of the other measures discussed in this thread.
If people think they are that likely to get infected or that they might be severely affected if they do (like loss of business etc) then maybe they should be thinking its justified to have the 'safety net' that is AV
Tinfoil hats don't come into it. It depends on what your PC is used for, and the level of risk you're willing to accept.
I run trading software on my Vista install. If malware gets hold of my account details, and the attacker places some losing trades on my behalf, imagine how it would look if I subsequently went to the exchange operator and said "Wasn't me".
Man of Honour
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It seems like there was some quote character weirdness with whichever editor I pasted those commands from.
" vs “ vs ”. Subtle difference. We want "non italic", for lack of a better term, quotes.
It should read :
*snip*
Excellent, thank you.
I edited the "Target" for the Mozilla Firefox shortcut. After launching it, it prompts me for the password of the fred.web account. After I have typed the password, it just brings up a command prompt labeled:
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