How concerned are people about security?

[PaulusDev]

Sorry for the techie thread but I find this interesting...
I was wondering, what kind of software do people use daily to protect their computers?

Do you believe that it is necessary to buy subscriptions to receive decent protection or do you rely on free programs?

Or perhaps you just use your computer in the state you found it in, and have no idea what antivirus program or firewall is present.

Do you avoid using Internet Explorer? Do you use Windows (XP or Vista, 32bit or 64bit - does it even matter?), Mac, Linux?

The poll is for security software but other input through posts is welcome.

 

[Chuck S]

I'm running XP and IE7. My machine came with Norton pre-installed, but I absolutely hated Norton. When the free year was up, I switched to McAfee, and it is running much better. I've heard some of the freebie anti-virus programs are really good, too, but I like having an installation disk, so it is just a personal preference.

 

[Claire L]

DH sorts all the computer stuff!

Claire

 

[PaulusDev]

I'm running XP and IE7. My machine came with Norton pre-installed, but I absolutely hated Norton. When the free year was up, I switched to McAfee, and it is running much better. I've heard some of the freebie anti-virus programs are really good, too, but I like having an installation disk, so it is just a personal preference.

Yeah a lot of people seem to hate Norton lol
Was it the most recent version?
My friend had the most recent version and it immediately decided to delete a file off my USB stick, with no apparent way to recover it!
:S

I heard that Nod32 is one of the best antivirus/security suites - specialising in very low use of system resources and high detection rate...
I am thinking about it...especially since you can apparently get a large student discount if you ring them up...

 

[pdchris]

I rarely, if ever, use IE7. I like FF better. I run Sunbelt's f/w and use AVG for a/v.
Since part of my job is network security, I feel comfortable with my "surfing." If I question a site, I can use arin.net to check the IP for the location of the server and use WHOIS searches, also.

 

[The Mystery Machine]

We use Norton's but as soon as it expired we got hit with the IE virus.
We used a free program purge it and it works with some success although when I google I am hijacked and I have to retry it.
So free and Nortons.

 

[LuvOrlando]

-

 

[claudia]

I purchased and installed Kaspersky.....

 

[ChloroFiend]

I'm an (THE) Information Security Analyst for a regional bank. Here's how things go at my house...

We have an enterprise-grade firewall/IPS connected to our DSL connection. That segregates out a DMZ area where I keep our home media server and FTP server. It also acts as a wireless point, secured by WPA2-PSK encryption.

I've got the firewall locked down to only needed ports + directions.

All computers run a combination of Symantec Corporate anti-virus, Spybot S&D immunization, and Windows firewall. if they start getting squirrely, Ad-Aware and Spybot are run along with SAV scans.

We eschew IE in favor of FireFox 3, especially with the AdBlockPlus add-on. IE-only sites can be viewed with the IETab plugin.

Our computers are a mix in WinXP SP3, Vista Ultimate SP1, 2003 Server SP2, and a few linux drives I have for forensics, pen-testing, or just plain hacking around. Automatic updates are enabled for automatic install on the fiancee's computer.....I do notify only for my boxes.

Not much else I can think of.

I'm more than happy to answer any computer security related questions, just fire away.

 

[PaulusDev]

[Ooops sorry accidental double post]

 

[PaulusDev]

Ah that's convinient

How would you go about running an executable that you are not sure is trustworthy (but there is no particular reason to assume otherwise and would ideally like to run it)?

 

[ChloroFiend]

Ah that's convinient

How would you go about running an executable that you are not sure is trustworthy (but there is no particular reason to assume otherwise and would ideally like to run it)?

Depends really. If I had reason to be paranoid, VMWare or LiveCD environments are awesome. If not, the layers of malware apps and various email scans are most likely enough to stop anything that's been seen in the wild before.

 

[PaulusDev]

Depends really. If I had reason to be paranoid, VMWare or LiveCD environments are awesome. If not, the layers of malware apps and various email scans are most likely enough to stop anything that's been seen in the wild before.

Have you heard of Sandboxie? I am about to do a reinstall of Vista and I'm tempted to try and keep things clean.
Do you know much about Nod32?

Cheers

 

[ChloroFiend]

Have you heard of Sandboxie? I am about to do a reinstall of Vista and I'm tempted to try and keep things clean.
Do you know much about Nod32?

Cheers

Haven't played with Sandboxie. NOD32 is a good AV app...haven't run it myself, but I've got some colleagues that swear by it. Tests on it are also very positive.

 

[PaulusDev]

Haven't played with Sandboxie. NOD32 is a good AV app...haven't run it myself, but I've got some colleagues that swear by it. Tests on it are also very positive.

Goody.

Also, is WPA2-PSK really secure? I'm not really concerned where I am but I am just interested.

 

[ChloroFiend]

I don't know of any systematic or intrinsic vulnerabilities yet discovered in the encryption algorithims or other components. About the only way to go at it is a dictionary attack, both live or replay-style. Not exactly the most effective or quick way to attack any system.

It's about as secure as you can get without having a wire.