On Monday 20 February 2006 22:40, Gadi Evron wrote:
Some who are user/broadband ISP's (not say, tier-1 and tier-2's who
would be against it: "don't be the Internet's Firewall") are blocking
ports such as 139 and 445 for a long time now, successfully preventing
many of their users from becoming infected. This is also an excellent
first step for responding to relevant outbreaks and halting their
progress.
Philosophy aside, it works. It stops infections. Period.
Umm.. sorry, but it doesn't. :-)
While blocking ports 139 and 445 does help in reducing the number of
infections, it doesn't stop them. We have here mostly user-friendly ISP's that
offer antivirus and antispam protection along with blocking ports (turned on by
default, and people don't know they can change that), but that just reduced the
speed of spreading and gave some more protection to users, but people here
still get infected, despite antivirus and port blocking.
Antivirus software can't cope with brand new virus/worm/malware until it is
detected and signature is distributed, so there's always a small chance you
might get another e-mail that passed the checkpoints. And users are... umm...
(searches google for polite variations of "idiot") ... gullible - they will
just click on that "free sex" icon.
The other part of the problem is that ISP's (in my country, at least) usually
do not offer such services for their lease-line customers, or they charge them
pretty penny for such services. Users on leased lines are up to their own
defences, which in many cases mean they have little to no defences.
--
Radoslav Dejanovi?
Operacijski sustavi d.o.o.
http://www.opsus.hr
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