Open Computers
 

Hi Guys

I have only just come across this thread, being ill with the flu, and found it very interesting. And I would like to throw my meager knowledge into the arena.

First of all, until recently installing WinXP would, by default, open most if not all (65,353) ports on your PC. This makes your PC light up on the internet like a lighthouse lights up the night. Any hacker with the right tools can seek out, find these unprotected machines and plant Trojans or viruses on them.

Now, remember a couple of years ago the sasser worm virtually ripped through every unprotected PC on the internet, every PC that got infected went on to broadcast more replicated worms onto the internet to infect other PCs.

My current PC is now three years old but last year I found pre-installed spyware on it, files that were there before I bought the machine. Now Peerless will confirm that we had a conversation where he informed me that PCs were being sold with pre-installed spyware, I was shocked at this piece of knowledge but my own findings confirmed what Peerless wrote.

What's more that spyware I found included something called "SendMail" and "Kazaa Lite"

Putting all the above together and it is quite possible that a new machine without any protection would be open to the world. And when you think of it, how many people know anything about the PC they have bought and connected to the internet. I mean, we have seen it time and time again in this very forum that the majority of people know very little about the computers that they buy and use.

Finally, although Andy's story may be fantastic but, based on my own knowledge, it is entirely possible that there are people out there without protection whose PCs are wide open and visible on the internet.





UK Bob

Sphinx, if you are right in the assumption that the user has deliberately opened her files to the world (That is what you meant, right?) then she SHOULD lose her job over breaching patient confidentiality. I was looking for an explanation that would protect her job. I have had no further contact with her, and don't expect to. If someone posts, here, a solid explanation, I will pass it along to the Clinic so they can warn their transcriptionists, and I will pass it along to the transcriptionist sites that I visit.
ukbobboy01's input is on point and helps to explain what happened. May I quote it in it's entirety to the sites mentioned above? There are only 4.
Keep in mind, folks, that all dictation by doctors has to be transcribed. They want the lowest price they can get. Most transcription is done by home-based transcriptionists, on equipment that they provide. Far too many of them don't understand computer security, and don't have the money to own a separate computer dedicated to work. The point here is that YOUR personal medical information may be scattered across many personal computers, both in the US, and in Pakistan, India, Ireland, and probably other countries that have not yet come to my attention. These that I listed are definite.
Sphinx, if I could hack, I would be DOSsing all the sites that keep sending me "male enhancement", medications deals, and other junk. But I can't.
"Andy"

some little 'facts'...

HP does indeed have about 150 instances of spy/malware preinstalled on their boxes...this is how they sell them for so cheap, as they are paid by these 'ppl' (boy, I must be loosing it to be so politically correct...) to bundle it in...

an un-firewalled computer lasts around 6 minutes online before it is infected/trojaned/etc...

this supposed medical transcriber could indeed have been hacked, and had LW (or another gnutella client) installed unbeknownst to her...it is already known that there is virus floating around which makes LW open up by itself, so it is really not a stretch of the imagination that a hacker could have taken over her machine and done what he wanted to with it...

on the flip side, it is also quite possible that this transcriber is lying to cover her ***...too many ppl answer yes to 'do you want to have your machine scanned for media to share?'..that has always pissed me off...I mean really, do the devs really want to have such data shared (seems like it don't it?)

Ok, now we're going in other directions. I was mainly referring to P2P apps. If someone is totally stupid about computers and leave them without firewalls or AV's then, yeah, of course it's possible to be open to the world and not realize it. but in XP if you dont have your windows firewall enabled then you get spammed as soon as you go online via IE browser right? so, if that person had half a brain, they would enable their firewall.

Andy's orginal post had to do with Limewire being open with users not knowing about it and I say itd too far fetched. Ive used p2p since Napster and I have yet to be wide open.The only thing users can browse on me is my shared folder, nothing more.

as far as the rest, meh. Why worry about someone elses computer being left open if they used a P2P app in the past? and, as far as I know once you uninstall a P2P the shared folders go with it, thats why I find it hard to believe.

and if she has a new computer then Im sure she must have her firewall enabled, if not, then shes not the user whos running it.

*shrug.

New PCs
 

Sphinx

I get the feeling you over estimate the amount of knowledge PC users have, for example you said:In my experience most people thrown in front of a PC for the first time to work, especially if they are approaching or are middle aged, see a PC as nothing more than a glorified type writer there to help them do their work. You will find that these people are not interested in PC security or anything PC related, it's just there to do a job and nothing more.

As for spyware, the ones I found on my PC, especially Kazaa Lite, were designed to give someone or some organisation open access to my C:\ drive. If I did not have my firewall in place and these spy(crap)ware were activated then my personal info would also be open.





UK Bob