[geeks] any thoughts for hardening w7?

[Phil Stracchino]

On 12/22/12 12:15, Nicolai wrote:
> On Thu, Dec 20, 2012 at 10:30:38PM -0500, Lionel Peterson wrote:
>> The Microsoft Security Essentials product is free, and is actually worth every
>> penny! ;^)
> 
> General:
> * Replace Adobe stuff with alternatives (e.g. Foxit Reader)
> * Uninstall Java

This isn't necessary, but you may want to disable your browser's Java
plugin.  Oh, and speaking of browsers, it's a really, really, really
good idea to never use Internet Explorer for anything if you can
possibly avoid it.  The entire Internet Explorer/ActiveX architecture is
fundamentally insecure.

> * Verify ALSR is enabled

A recently published exploit completely defeats ASLR.  Don't rely on it.

> * Make sure she understands that most antivirus software is
> fake/malicious.

This is an extreme overstatement.

There *is* malware out there that pretends to be antivirus software.
Several of the major antivirus packages don't work all that well or are
massive CPU hogs (McAfee, Symantec among them).  But there are plenty of
perfectly good antivirus solutions to choose from.  None of the major
antivirus vendors' products are unsafe.  The best are probably
Kaspersky, F-Secure, and Avast!.


-- 
  Phil Stracchino, CDK#2     DoD#299792458     ICBM: 43.5607, -71.355
  alaric at caerllewys.net   alaric at metrocast.net   phil at co.ordinate.org
  Renaissance Man, Unix ronin, Perl hacker, SQL wrangler, Free Stater
                 It's not the years, it's the mileage.