Cryptolocker (was RE: Is tape dead?

On 09/16/2015 01:10 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote: It would be much harder. In general, browsers do not activate just any file you would download. There are weaknesses in various graphical/video add-ons to browsers that may cause vulnerabilities. But, in GENERAL, malware in videos, etc. would either do nothing at all when sent to the add-on program, or get a message saying something like "this script contains macros, executing it could be a security risk: Yes / No" I've been browsing quite fearlessly with Linux systems for about 17 years, and NEVER had any problem. Now, I've also had a Linux web server up for about 15 years, and have had 2 successful penetrations. One was totally innocuous, they just added a phishing web site for a bank, and it was easy to remove. Another attack put in a root kit, and it caused a major mess, including me sending out some infected code to other people. (OOPS, red face!!) These were both done by cracking insecure passwords on my system. The best defense for that is running denyhosts, which counts login failures from specific IP addresses, and cuts off all access from that IP after a threshold. I set it very tight, two failed attempts within a month and you are out for a year. It was VERY interesting, exactly, to the HOUR, two weeks after I set this up, the 1000 per day attempts to break in dropped to 3 a day. This means the botnets actively track how long the horizon on the login failures is set, and they've been programmed to give up on any node that has a horizon over 2 weeks. Jon