For all the people who believe aditional Antivirus software, is not necessary..

Scannerman · Jan 29, 2025

TraderGary said:
@Scannerman, you bring up valid points. Despite TPM 2.0 being around for over a decade, it has faced several vulnerabilities and attacks. To my knowledge, known vulnerabilities have been patched. This highlights that no security measure is infallible. It's crucial to keep systems updated and apply patches promptly to mitigate known vulnerabilities. Security is an ongoing process.

Agreed. I'm still not of the persuasion that nearly every PC that wasn't less than 5 years old should have been rendered obsolete in the name of TPM2 because other security measures could have been employed that wouldn't have been so drastic. At the end of the day you are your own best first line of defence and by simply taking active measures i.e. security updates, using a dependable anti-malware program, and engaging in sensible browsing habits I would venture that over 90% of security issues can be eliminated. There is a point to which all this meets personal responsibility.

PhilB · Jan 31, 2025

RD Mercer said:
Probably just me, but I have always thought since the beginning, the antivirus companies, are the ones that create the viruses. I believe the best antivirus, is setting on top of your shoulders.

It's your system and your personal and private data. Me, I need to use Win 11 as my daily driver but I (1) practice safe browsing, and (2) spend on Bitdefender Total Security. A pittance compared with the dollar value of your time, and actual costs if you get hacked.

PhilB · Jan 31, 2025

kelper said:
Excellent measures but these should be in addition tp proper endpoint protection. Does your company disable the USB ports on all computers? Employees can be really stupid. As Stalin said, 'Trust but verify'.

Not Stain. Reagan.

Stalin once said, "How many divisions does the Pope have?

RD Mercer · Jan 31, 2025

x509 said:
It's your system and your personal and private data. Me, I need to use Win 11 as my daily driver but I (1) practice safe browsing, and (2) spend on Bitdefender Total Security. A pittance compared with the dollar value of your time, and actual costs if you get hacked.

I'm probably a bit of a different pc user, have no personal data on the drive I browse the internet on. I use my iPhone with two-step authentication for any personal information like banking or etc. I use a duel bay dock cloner for doing drive backups, "it's fast and dependable" because ssd's are so cheap now days, I usually clone my drive I browse on a couple times a week, on a couple different drives. No, no one on this earth is completely safe from anything, but I do feel pretty safe in regards to my personal information out in cyberspace. I'm comfortable with the way I'm doing it, I guess that's what really matters to all of us.

Scannerman · Jan 31, 2025

RD Mercer said:
I'm probably a bit of a different pc user, have no personal data on the drive I browse the internet on. I use my iPhone with two-step authentication for any personal information like banking or etc. I use a duel bay dock cloner for doing drive backups, and ssd's are so cheap now days, I usually clone my drive I browse on a couple times a week, on a couple different drives. No, no one on this earth is completely safe from anything, but I do feel pretty safe in regards to my personal information out in cyberspace. I'm comfortable with the way I'm doing it, I guess that's what really matters to all of us.

Last week someone I know who used 2FA on his phone lost his Microsoft email account and a 14 year old subscription to a game. I warned him about playing games with his phone and now he doesn't even talk to me anymore. Once again, it's all about user preference.

RD Mercer · Jan 31, 2025

Scannerman said:
Last week someone I know who used 2FA on his phone lost his Microsoft email account and a 14 year old subscription to a game. I warned him about playing games with his phone and now he doesn't even talk to me anymore. Once again, it's all about user preference.

As I said, not any of us are completely safe, and @73 I certainly don't game, but I do hunt them Cougar's

. So as long as I feel safe, and have never been hacked in since 1984, I'm going to stay the course.

Scannerman · Jan 31, 2025

RD Mercer said:
As I said, not any of us are completely safe, and @73 I certainly don't game, but I do hunt them Cougar's . So as long as I feel safe, and have never been hacked in since 1984, I'm going to stay the course.

Play with fire and you could get burned, brother. They don't call 'em cougars for nuthin'.

andrew129260 · Jan 31, 2025

Scannerman said:
Last week someone I know who used 2FA on his phone lost his Microsoft email account and a 14 year old subscription to a game. I warned him about playing games with his phone and now he doesn't even talk to me anymore. Once again, it's all about user preference.

sounds like they were stupid and didn't keep their backup codes like they were told multiple times when 2fa is set up

kelper · Jan 31, 2025

Sounds odd to me. Normally you can recover a MS account if you go through a few challenges.

andrew129260 · Jan 31, 2025

kelper said:
Sounds odd to me. Normally you can recover a MS account if you go through a few challenges.

Agreed, you can usually recover the account even if you forgot the backup codes in some way. It takes time to verify identity but it is possible.

Scannerman · Jan 31, 2025

andrew129260 said:
sounds like they were stupid and didn't keep their backup codes like they were told multiple times when 2fa is set up

kelper said:
Sounds odd to me. Normally you can recover a MS account if you go through a few challenges.

andrew129260 said:
Agreed, you can usually recover the account even if you forgot the backup codes in some way. It takes time to verify identity but it is possible.

I don't use a cell phone so I wouldn't know. I do recall using the MS authenticator and writing down my codes. Well, those codes failed and I was locked out of that account. Fortunately, it was for a game that my daughters played and I rarely played. I just let it go. Only one more proof that I can't solely trust Microsoft for my security online. To be sure I'll not use their 2FA like that again. For me, it's the land line and I'll stick with using pass words.

andrew129260 · Feb 1, 2025

Scannerman said:
I don't use a cell phone so I wouldn't know. I do recall using the MS authenticator and writing down my codes. Well, those codes failed and I was locked out of that account. Fortunately, it was for a game that my daughters played and I rarely played. I just let it go. Only one more proof that I can't solely trust Microsoft for my security online. To be sure I'll not use their 2FA like that again. For me, it's the land line and I'll stick with using pass words.

No offense, but this seems like a thing you didn't do correctly, not an issue with microsoft.

I have 2fa on everything with backup codes etc authenticator apps and I have never had an issue.

Authenticator app codes cannot be written down, as they change constantly.

Backup codes are something else entirely separate from the authenticator app. They are to be used as a last resort if you lost your phone or don't have a way to get a code for some reason. They can each only be used once.

XxXxX · Feb 1, 2025

Scannerman said:
I don't use a cell phone so I wouldn't know. I do recall using the MS authenticator and writing down my codes. Well, those codes failed and I was locked out of that account. Fortunately, it was for a game that my daughters played and I rarely played. I just let it go. Only one more proof that I can't solely trust Microsoft for my security online. To be sure I'll not use their 2FA like that again. For me, it's the land line and I'll stick with using pass words.

i use 2FA but it sent as a text message to my not very smart Nokia flip phone which then gets deleted after its been used.
best of luck, Steve ..

RD Mercer · Feb 1, 2025

No ones information is sacred anymore, well unless you can control all the cameras and crooks all over this world. If anyone has a way to 100% guarantee us that any persons personal information is 100% hack proof, please patent it now, you could be a trillionaire in a week. If you have a drivers license or social security card are medical record in the US, you're open season to be hacked, lets not forget, there are many ways to get hacked, even if you don't even own a PC. Let that sink in.

jimbo45 · Feb 1, 2025

RD Mercer said:
No ones information is sacred anymore, well unless you can control all the cameras and crooks all over this world. If anyone has a way to 100% guarantee us that any persons personal information is 100% hack proof, please patent it now, you could be a trillionaire in a week. If you have a drivers license or social security card are medical record in the US, you're open season to be hacked, lets not forget, there are many ways to get hacked, even if you don't even own a PC. Let that sink in.

Actually the cost and legal things you have to do to patent stuff is quite complex.

EU process here : (I'm sure UK, US, AUS, CAN etc have similar procedures.)

The worst people for data "protection" are the Credit agencies like Experian etc - but nobody ever seems to get on their case.

Patents in the EU: Protection and registering - Your Europe

Learn more about registering a patent and how to gain exclusive rights over your invention for a certain period of time. Choose national patents or EU patents.

europa.eu

Please don't rant about stuff you obviously know NOTHING about. I've run small businesses for years plus been an independent contractor too -- so nothing in any case as ever been proved to be 100% hackproof -- same as there never has been a 100% escape proof jail including Guantanamo Bay.

I've run small businesses for years plus for 99% of my working life been an independent contractor so I have first hand experience with this stuff and it's not as simple as you seem to imply -- even getting a good USP for a business is not so easy either. !!

Things like DVLA / US social security etc -- OK one can get data but it's actually quite hard unless you are with FBI -- even local Police have to make a good case and get a court order (usually Federal in the US) which is not always easy -- OK some corrupt depts are always there but it's much harder than most people think to gert this type of data -- so please GET REAL.

Constructive discussions on these topicsa are always great but something like your post just sounds like even poor "Agit prop" rubbish by left wing political activistis in the 1960's era.

RD Mercer · Feb 1, 2025

jimbo45 said:
Things like DVLA / US social security etc -- OK one can get data but it's actually quite hard unless you are with FBI -- even local Police have to make a good case and get a court order (usually Federal in the US) which is not always easy -- OK some corrupt depts are always there but it's much harder than most people think to gert this type of data -- so please GET REAL.

Here, people break into multiple mail box units everyday, to get your personal info like SS numbers, etc. Here, they even break into the big mailboxes right outside our post offices, most of the data of anyone here is so simple to get, even a 10 year old could figure it out.

jimbo45 · Feb 1, 2025

RD Mercer said:
Here, people break into multiple mail box units everyday, to get your personal info like SS numbers, etc. Here, they even break into the big mailboxes right outside our post offices, most of the data of anyone here is so simple to get, even a 10 year old could figure it out.

Physical (i.e analog) crime is a totally different ball game -- that requires society to teach youngsters respect for others, education, political will, Courts dishing out proper sentences etc -- nothing to do with hacking.

Cheers
jimbo

Wynona · Feb 1, 2025

andrew129260 said:
Windows Defender is a highly backed program by microsoft and has a very large R&D budget, so your argument doesn't hold water. Microsoft has a vested interest in keeping your OS safe, not just for reputation, but for financial reasons as well. No one will be more motivated to protect their product than the people making that product.

I have seen countless paid products share the same or similar detections results to windows defender. Of course, just like with any other company, things will change from time to time and one product might be better than another for a time being in detection rates, but that's just the nature of security. There is no best program or one do it all solution that will magically fix everything.

We have seen time and time again the rise of vulnerabilities on security products themselves, due to them using ill advised or bad methods to have complete control over the system to function how they "need to".

Other security products and their research is well needed and a great thing to have in the industry as competition makes things better for everyone. There are multiple R&D and security companies working on things all the time. The amount of threats are endless. Nothing will ever be a silver bullet.

I am not saying windows defender is perfect, however I am saying that it is not a basic or pathetic solution as you seem to imply. It is true that using windows defender is something that by default people are using the most, so it's going to be attacked more and targeted to be bypassed.

I use malwarebytes as a second opinion, but I don't think it's strictly necessary.

Exactly. We don't know what AV they were using. Sure if someone used sophos they claim they would have blocked it. We don't know if they were running as admin, what group policies if any were applied, etc. The article is extremely loose on details.

Also this was a usb malware attack, this is a very common sore point for any security solution. According to sophos from this article:

A border-hopping PlugX USB worm takes its act on the road

Borne aloft by DLL sideloading, a far-flung infection touches ten time zones

news.sophos.com

PlugX is fairly common backdoor malware (a RAT, remote access Trojan) of Chinese origin. If you read the article you get a surprise

So if it is common I would hope that any and all security solution would have been able to identify the new threat, but that doesn't always happen. I think its more of the luck of the draw when it comes to security, vs any security solution being "bad".

Dear god that was a nightmare. Thanks for bringing that back lol.

Luckily changes are being made on that front to help prevent these issues going forward.

Taking steps that drive resiliency and security for Windows customers

On Tuesday, Sept. 10, we hosted the Windows Endpoint Security Ecosystem Summit. This forum brought together a diverse group of endpoint security vendors and government officials from the U.S. and Europe to discuss strategies for improving resiliency

blogs.windows.com

Well written and helpful.

I use Microsoft defender for my computer. Thus far I am clean as a whistle!

Wynona · Feb 1, 2025

Silvio said:
For all the people who believe aditional Antivirus software, is not necessary..
"FBI wipes Chinese PlugX malware from thousands of Windows PCs in America"

FBI wipes Chinese PlugX malware from 4,200+ US Windows PCs

Hey, Xi: Zài jiàn!

www.theregister.com

I read the article. Nowhere within the article was it intimated or even stressed that one should use more than one antivirus software. Neither did it recommend that free and or paid for Anti virus programs be used. Of course, any savvy computer user would know to use an antivirus program. It is up to the individual as to how they protect their computers.

Further, I saw no recommendation as to what one should do to prevent the plugX from infecting ones computer.

I may have Later comments on this since I have not completely read the whole thread. What I have read is that way less than one percent of the Billions of computers Running Microsoft Windows Have been infected.

Wynona · Feb 1, 2025

Silvio said:
Great post, great regime..

To be honest, I was so disgusted with some of the "pitch fork mob" like responses to this thread, for daring to question MS Windows Defender, I almost left this place, for good.

"For all the people who believe aditional Antivirus software, is not necessary.."

There was no perception on my part that you dared to question Microsoft Windows defender; what I perceived was that you Dared to lump all of us into one gigantic group of idiots who didn't know how to protect their machines!

For all the people who believe aditional Antivirus software, is not necessary..

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