On May 7, 4:55 am, Roy Schestowitz <newsgro...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> New Worm Targets Portable Memory Drives
>
> ,----[ Quote ]
> | The SillyFD-AA worm searches for removable drives such as floppy
> | disks and USB memory sticks and creates a hidden file called
> | autorun.inf so that a copy of the worm runs the next time the
> | device is connected to a computer running Windows.
> `----
>
> http://www.physorg.com/news97579079.html
>
> How can the insertion of a device lead to invocation of executables (other
> than the handler in the kernel)? This is just foolish design that lacks the
> notion of (mis)trust.
If I understand things correctly, all the executable needs to do is
name itself "Install" something and Vista will pop up with a request
for a root password. The user doesn't have be so dumb as to enter it,
but I imagine many will do so.
I do think, however, that any OS is vulnerable if you factor in enough
user stupidity. But how many "never do this" rules does a naive user
have to remember to avoid infection (a criterion for comparing
different OS's)? (In my experience, naive users can remember
somewhere between 0 and 1 rules.) And how many of those rule
violations are needed before you have a compromise (on different
OS's)?
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