The Underscore Archives

																																			On 28/09/06, Oliver Humpage <oliver at watershed.co.uk> wrote:

>
> on 28/9/06 11:06, Andy Davies at dajdavies at gmail.com wrote:
>
> > Aye, I suspect more people have NAT'd connections to the internet now
> may
> > have had an effect too.
>
> Most viruses tend to be email-borne, which doesn't care about NAT. One you
> have a virus, it will usually dial out over IRC to alert its master
> there's
> a new zombie, which again isn't affected by NAT.
>
> Straight attacks on "live" PCs happen, of course (cf Blaster), but the
> majority get in by non-NAT-affected means. Obviously trojans (by
> definition)
> are invited in, however unwittingly, by the user.
>
> Mind you, BT - and some other providers - aren't helping any by dishing
> out
> free USB ADSL modems. I think they should be outlawed (*).



I wouldn't disagree about the balance between the two, clearly the increased
used of AV, email scanning services etc. has had the largest effect, but
don't forget the tests with upatched XP boxes illustrating how quickly it is
to get infected via a non-NAT'd connection.

Some of the trojan writers are sneaky b*st*rds - my daughter uses something
called Habbo Hotel and people have tried sending her several trojans virus -
others kids sites seem to have become real targets for them too.

Andy