[Boatanchors] Computer Security

[rbethman]

All,

I've been in this field for quite a number of years.

As a Sysadmin working at the Puzzle Palace, I regularly had to clean 
Email servers due to folks that would arbitrarily "click" on *any* link 
in a message.

A couple of others and myself spent untold hours cleaning entire DoD 
Branch Servers due to this.

I have a "separate" computer that is essentially a "sacrificial lamb".  
It resides behind one firewall only.

I run the other pieces of software on it also.

I refer to it as a "sacrificial lamb" because it is the *one* machine 
that the wife uses, and merrily clicks on videos and other things.

It does indeed acquire a "bug" or two.  However, the software packages I 
use, through heuristic analysis, isolates them rapidly!

They become quarantined in a period of time that is pretty much 
instantaneous.

This particular machine gets used for serious use, and doesn't go 
on-line in a "willy-nilly" fashion.

It is behind several firewalls and address range changes.

Therefore I don't get those issues.

Been there, done that.  Others "claim" that the Apple OSX and/or Unix 
variants are "immune.  That is flat erroneous.

YMMV

BTW, Black Ice Defender even howls if an attempt to ping this machine 
occurs.  The origin IP address is recorded, and the specific characters 
are "also" recorded, and the entirety is isolated.

Regards,
Bob - N0DGN