Some people here have some crazy security setups, some bordering on overkill. I was wondering if any of you have had such setups bypassed. Tell me how, and when. I also know a lot of you change setups frequently, so just go with your most common, or frequently used setup. Edit: Darn it, second should say "intentionally" Edit: I will define "bypassed" as active malware getting onto the computer and able to cause trouble. Inert remnants, etc. will not count as bypassed.
Not my current one, only remember a bypass several years ago when I was a noob with outdated Norton. No malware bypassed Chrome, Sandboxie, or VirtualBox yet.
I can't really answer yes or no in a simple way. A full security breach and takeover, being hacked, never. Crashes and weird stuff that could have been caused by an exploit attack that didn't fully succeed, possible but I've had quite a few of these over the last ten years and it's possible that a lot of them were caused by simple software failure or even a hardware glitch. When it happens, most often it just requires a reboot but in some cases, the system had become corrupted and I had to restore it from an image. That being said, most of the image restores I've done have been due to incompatible software I've installed that messed up my system in some way. I've had no malware at all but I'm very careful about the software I use and always use a limited user account online and I strengthen the file permissions from the default Windows settings quite a bit. Apart from that, a firewall and an antivirus that is lean on system resources are all I use for live security software. Imaging and backup are much more important to me.
Only recent event was a hardware failure of my wireless adapter card. Growing up, we had a single shared (family) computer that was always chocking with infections, adware, etc. We pretty much used it for surfing, checking e-mail, and doing research for school. This didn't really change until I entered high school and received my own personal computer. Despite my best efforts to protect it, I got an infection 1-2 times a year. That turned around my senior year and I have been event and infection free for the past six year. On a side note, we had an event on one of our other computers. I was researching on internet explorer for one of my classes. The first time I've used the browser since high school. Our anti-virus detected an infection within the sandbox and neutralized it. Purged the sandbox and haven't had problems since. I've done several follow-up scans with some on-demand scanners and haven't seen anything suspicious in the event viewer.
Well hard to tell. As for malware, I would say never, meaning the time I am security aware. As for hackers, I would never know.
not in the last few years. the only thing i am using is NoScript. and i scan downlands using VirusTotal and HitMan Pro.
No, not this win xp setup: Powershadow + Sandboxie + Avast! free + SpywareBlaster + Outpost firewall free. Have had these events which resulted in no infection: - Clicked on a link which immediately shut down and restarted the computer...speakers popped on shutdown. Not a hardware nor heat problem. Revisited the site a few minutes later and that link was gone. No harm done here. - Another time, don't remember the details, the computer shut off and restarted on its own. Also not a heat nor hardware problem. Extensive malware check, no harm done here. - Using Teamviewer or GoToMyPC or some such, the visiting user tried to restart the computer, and when it restarted the software and the visitor were gone. - Sometimes Avast! will pop a warning about some malware or malicious site. Delete the sandbox and keep going, all is well. Powershadow is an app that loses all changes upon shutdown, might be the only thing I really need, but I'm not brave enough to abandon the anti-malware apps. Edit: AX64 is showing great promise as a replacement for Powershadow. Powershadow won't work for vista, 7, or 8. So I am following the AX64 topic closely. Both Powershadow and AX64 got extensive analyses here, and I thank you all for that.
Yes I got bypassed several times. I was using Avast which doesn't protect you from adware. After installing K9 web protection or Forticlient instead of Avast I had no problems.
Nothing has bypassed my setup ever since I started using Sandboxie almost five years ago. I haven't even seen anything that looks like malware during this time, its like malware doesnt exist for me. But that credit (not seeing anything) goes to NoScript. Bo
My current setup hasn't been breached that I know of, though my XP laptop got a couple of trojans when I was running Norton Antivirus and using IE 6.0 for everyday browsing
AFAIK, no. However, let me respond with another question: if your system were compromised, how would you know? (Short of mysterious credit card payments, or the police paying you a visit, or such.) Current rootkits are pretty good at hiding themselves.
My laptop does get infected on very rare occasions. Which is understandable, since I don't go to great lengths to protect it, and on occasion don't have any antivirus installed. I've never had an infection that I was not able to remove, or captured private information.
On windows 98se, constantly. That's when i began to get heavily involved in joining security forums and working in them myself to help others escape the misery. On XP and ever since not a chance unless i done it myself. Even then only locally run viruses like Parite, Sality, etc. plus the dreaded MBR destructors became my play toys. Rootkits were allowed to enter because i could gather up those catches and turn some of their dastardly creations into stealth security by actually using a select type of their own drivers and hiding my driver blocking exe in Alternate Data Streams on both folders or system files myself.
My PCs with operating systems ranging from 98SE through XP-Pro have all remained malware free after I implemented a default-deny security policy and stopped relying on AVs.
