Home » 

UK ISP News Archives

 » 
Sponsored Links

Internet Viruses Nuking Virgin PC's

Posted: 18th Aug, 2004 By: MarkJ
Given that many pre-built PC's don't come with the very latest security patches, it's thus unsurprising to find that, once connected to the net for the first time, most will only last 20 minutes before being hit by a virus.

The results come from the latest SANS Institute statistics, which finds that the half life of many new PC's on the Internet isn't even long enough to download the latest security patches:

SANS calculated the survival time of a PC using the average time between probes of an average target IP address from worms attempting to propagate for an average target IP address.

"If you are assuming that most of these reports are generated by worms that attempt to propagate, an unpatched system would be infected by such a probe," said the Institute in a statement. However, it said, the result is only an average, and times will vary widely from network to network.

"Some of our submitters subscribe to ISPs which block ports commonly used by worms," said the Institute. "As a result, these submitters report a much longer 'survival time'. On the other hand, university networks and users of high speed Internet services are frequently targeted with additional scans from malware like bots. If you are connected to such a network, your 'survival time' will be much smaller."


Readers should take the MS Blaster worm as a perfect example because it comes in through your Internet connection and not an e-mail (it finds you).

Typically broadband users with static IP's would be most at risk because they're easier to find and online longer. These days anybody selling a pre-built PC should really make sure they can update it before sale. More @ ZDNet.
Search ISP News
Search ISP Listings
Search ISP Reviews
Cheap BIG ISPs for 100Mbps+
Community Fibre UK ISP Logo
150Mbps
Gift: None
Virgin Media UK ISP Logo
Virgin Media £24.00
132Mbps
Gift: None
Shell Energy UK ISP Logo
Shell Energy £26.99
109Mbps
Gift: None
Plusnet UK ISP Logo
Plusnet £27.99
145Mbps
Gift: None
Zen Internet UK ISP Logo
Zen Internet £28.00 - 35.00
100Mbps
Gift: None
Large Availability | View All
Cheapest ISPs for 100Mbps+
Gigaclear UK ISP Logo
Gigaclear £15.00
150Mbps
Gift: None
YouFibre UK ISP Logo
YouFibre £19.99
150Mbps
Gift: None
Community Fibre UK ISP Logo
150Mbps
Gift: None
BeFibre UK ISP Logo
BeFibre £21.00
150Mbps
Gift: £25 Love2Shop Card
Hey! Broadband UK ISP Logo
150Mbps
Gift: None
Large Availability | View All
Sponsored Links
The Top 15 Category Tags
  1. FTTP (5472)
  2. BT (3505)
  3. Politics (2524)
  4. Openreach (2291)
  5. Business (2251)
  6. Building Digital UK (2234)
  7. FTTC (2041)
  8. Mobile Broadband (1961)
  9. Statistics (1778)
  10. 4G (1654)
  11. Virgin Media (1608)
  12. Ofcom Regulation (1451)
  13. Fibre Optic (1392)
  14. Wireless Internet (1386)
  15. FTTH (1381)
Sponsored

Copyright © 1999 to Present - ISPreview.co.uk - All Rights Reserved - Terms  ,  Privacy and Cookie Policy  ,  Links  ,  Website Rules