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On 11:11 Mon 21 Mar , Lindsay Haisley wrote: |
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> I'm putting this in a separate thread because IMHO it has nothing to do |
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> with any problems I'm having, but with desktop security in general. |
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> |
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> On Mon, 2011-03-21 at 09:57 +0100, Roman Zilka wrote: |
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> > The third suggestion is probably the most important one: being NAT'd |
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> > and being behind any iptables configuration (that allows for operations |
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> > such as sending mail and browsing the web) doesn't make your PC |
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> > invulnerable or anything near that. In other words, active break-in |
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> > attempts via open ports is by far not the only option hackers have. |
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> |
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> So give me an example, Roman, assuming one's firewall is intact and |
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> functioning as designed. The only such class of possible exploits I can |
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> think of is the possibility of importing a virus, trojan, worm, etc. via |
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> email, or possibly via a web script. Linux viruses propagated via email |
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> are scarcer than hen's teeth, and an exploit imported thusly which would |
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> leverage a vulnerability in a specific problem kernel is almost |
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> certainly rare enough to be considered nonexistent in the wild as a |
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> practical matter. Please cite specific viruses/trojans, and if you can, |
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> reported cases of such exploits. In other words, don't blow smoke at me |
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> or throw out generalized assertions without citing evidence to support |
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> them. |
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|
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Web-based vulnerabilities in Firefox or apps it uses for filetype |
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support (e.g. Evince for PDF has had vulnerabilities lately) would be |
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the most common, assuming you can convince people to visit a web server |
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that's rooted or compromised by XSRF/XSS. |
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|
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-- |
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Thanks, |
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Donnie |
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|
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Donnie Berkholz |
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Desktop project lead |
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Gentoo Linux |
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Blog: http://dberkholz.com |
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