What's the risk of connecting to the internet without protection?

Read the article that everyone's commenting on.
Subscribe to the RSS Feed for comments on this article.

The person that asked the original question seems to be assuming that the computer will be turned off and the cable modem left on. In that case there is no risk of hacking, virus infection, spyware infection or anything else as long as the computer is off.
Most of the modern routers and cable modems have a firewall included in the hardware. If a person's package doesn't include a hardware firewall a router is an extremely good idea.
When that new router is purchased change the password from the default password and you are pretty much protected.
I say pretty much because if a person should allow their antivirus protection to lapse, such as when a subscription is over, then they are vulnerable to any number of malware problems.
People who do allow their subscriptions to lapse will end up having to reformat their computers or will have to pay someone to clean their computer for them.

AG

Funny, my original intent was to just say I disagree, I ended up writing a novel, :)
Leo, I enjoy your mailing list, thank you!

"...if antivirus software worked, I would be out of a job..."

I do agree with you about getting patches and updates for your OS, but I must respectfully disagree with the majority of your post.

sure, there are uncountable amounts of viruses out there but the vast majority of them are unable to infect your computer even when using the basic "out of the box" windows security features. people just need to be educated about viruses. if i send to you an e-mail full of viruses, and you open that email, read it, view the photos, etc. you will not be virused, if you visit a website full of viruses, you will not be harmed. 99.99% of the time you have to CLICK and ALLOW a program to run. viruses infect a computer when someone wants that free "click here for free mp3, screen saver, ring tone, game or 100th customer laptop" and the plethora of other garbage the site promises. Also they can get through when a site tricks you into fake updates, "you need the new flash player or video codec to watch/listen/download this, click here to get it"
NEVER click them, if a video site tells you you need the newest flash player, go to flash.com, if a game site tells you that you need the newest java, go to java.com, if a site pops up a window saying you need the newest internet explorer, windows updates or whatever, go to microsoft.com NEVER click the link they offer you because they may have garbage attached.

if a popup appears asking if you want to download a virus, the yes button means yes, and the no button.... well that could mean yes also, do not click them, just open the task manager (CONTROL ALT DEL) and shut that program down.
When antivirus companies spend millions advertising how dangerous the web is, it makes me sick, a little education and people would be much safer. who do you think makes the majority of viruses? ANTI VIRUS companies.

I own a small computer repair business, www.cheapestPCrepair.com and I have been running the same personal computer for about 5 years now. Thats 5 years of myspace, youtube, bittorrents, music and video downloads, online gaming, inserting all types of strangers drives into my system, etc. In that 5 years I have not had trojans, spyware, viruses, or anything similar affect or infect my computer. what antivirus do i use? NOTHING, I do not even have my windows firewall turned on. I am going through a router and that is my suggestion for any readers, and i certainly am NOT suggesting that you go without antivirus software, I am just saying that I have not needed it. here is another thing; if antivirus software worked, I would be out of a job. I hear every day "how could i have viruses? I just paid $80 for Nortons" Well, that's my thoughts on it as well, if antivirus software actualy worked, we wouldnt have so much problem. we need to rely on common sense, we need to stop taking the convenient way and do a little research (spend 5 minutes typing a program or link into google and see other opinions about it before you install/run it).

another problem with most antivirus programs, is the massivley slow your system down and give you tons of popup security warnings and cripple your ability to do some things or get some things to work..... kind of like a virus in the first place.

NOTE: if you do decide to use antivirus software, get the FREE version of Norton and PC Doctor from www.pack.google.com (do not get the google desktop, it's another program that slows your system down) and get the following other tools to keep your system running smooth. free malwarebytes, eusing free registry cleaner and ccleaner. google them.

"An educated computer user has less chance of getting "virused" then a misinformed computer user with the best antivirus protection."

I'm inclined to agree with Bradley - most infections seem to be self-induced. But I still run AVAST (free) and Windows Defender, 'just in case'! At least I have now dropped Zone Alarm and just have Vista firewall on, as well as being behind a NAT router, of course.

Agree with Bradley!! I have a couple of 'play' machines that I experiment with. When run without anti-virus and anti-spyware, they performed without problems. It has been a experiment, and the machines do run much faster. One note, when I re-installed the windows XP operating system on one (initially) which was at SP1, I did get hit with the 'old' messenger bug, necessitating 'shoot the messenger'. But after I put in SP2, and SP3, it,s run clean.
I don't surf 'trash sites', and do not use these machines with personal info.
For what that's worth, Roger

I fully agree with Bradley.Most of the Viruses are created by Antivirus companies itself coz they are the only people benefiting from a virus infection.Now a days i hate Antivirus softwares more than the virus itself coz they slow the system down.If users r not that vigilant against Bradley's "click" traps they can try "Deep Freeze"which makes use of the virtualisatiion technology.It never slows down(not an iota,coz its not an antiviurs software) while giving a bullet proof protection.No updates,no defragmentation,no missing files,no Windows reinstallation ....
Ranjith

There is definitely a risk to surfing the Internet without protection. My elderly dad let his antivirus software expire and he started getting popups, browser redirects and his inbox was inundated with spam. Unfortunately, he fell for one of the rouge antivirus products in the 2009-antispyware family. After paying $59.95, he still got all that annoying stuff, plus alarming reports every 5 seconds saying that his machine was still infected.

It took some work, but we managed to get his computer clean with the help of Malwarebytes’ Anti-malware. His ISP had a free McAfee suite available for subscribers in his tier, so we installed that. Then we made sure everything else was updated by running a Secunia scan. And to keep his daily Internet surfing safer we installed Web of Trust. I feel fairly confident now that he is protected. I left detailed instructions and will email reminders for him to run scans.

But after all that, he was furious. He felt violated and hurt by these fraudsters. Being on a fixed income, he was worried about losing the money. He is now waiting for his credit card bill to come in so he can refuse payment and report the scam. I hope he gets satisfaction.

I agree with Bradley also. Do you really believe that all of this malware is coming from 1000's of people all pissed at Bill Gates. If you believe that then you believe all of Obama's money is legit.

No matter how much protection you use, it's still a risky place to be, and it's always going to be a race between the software, OS, & AV updates and the security holes found.
There's no perfect protection except to stay off and never connect to anything but power sockets.
But for the most part the biggest security hole is the space between the mouse, keyboard and the user, even a fully updated system across the board can still get bombed by the newest "Threat" and sometimes an older "Threat" if the user isn't paying attention to how they're searching, clicking, opening, etc.

This article resurfaced a concern of mine. I usually turn on my computer and plug in my DSL modem at the same time, and then go about other business while Windows boots and Norton AntiVirus loads and then Windows and Norton AntiVirus do their updates. The modem is ready several minutes before Windows and Norton AntiVirus are finished loading. In the intervening time is my computer exposed to the internet and any nefarious bugs out on the web? It is a nuisance to turn on the computer and wait for Windows and Norton AntiVirus to load before plugging in my modem.

The problem with "User Education" as an end-all solution is that it's truly an immense undertaking for a general user to be as educated as Leo, Bradly or myself. We're "geeks" (for lack of a better term) and it takes time to get to that level of understanding. For example, I just had this one from a client...

"How do I know if I'm opening an email attachment...when I highlight the email, it shows automatically...can I get a virus just by highlighting it?!?!"

To the new email user, this thought is common. Heck, it took me a long time to understand that one too. However, how am I to explain this one small facet of computer use? "No, you didn't open the attachment, but by having the auto-preview feature on, you are subjecting yourself to more spam because it's auto-downloading pictures which tell the spammer you exist." This is truth, but they don't understand it. Again, this is just one, tiny detail of Internet/computer use. The common Internet user may go their whole life without learning this level of detail...on this one ... small ... detail. User education will grow on it's own, but they'll never be up to speed with the hackers/spammers. The general user will always be susceptable to frauds as Deborah's unsuspecting and underserving father was.

To post a comment on "What's the risk of connecting to the internet without protection?", please return to that article's main page.