http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/08/19/infected_in20_minutes/
"And what's something else that takes 20 minutes?
Oh, that's how long your average unprotected PC running Windows XP will last once it's connected to the Internet ... before it's compromised and effectively 0\/\/n3d.
The SANS Institute Internet Storm Center released those eye-opening numbers a few days ago. Go take a look at their graph, and you'll note that the current time of 20 minutes is half that of what it was a year ago, although, to be fair, the average has been both higher and lower - over an hour last Christmas and only about 15 minutes in the spring. That hour at Christmas seems like an aberration, and the overall trend has definitely been downward, towards far shorter times before your Windows box is not really yours any longer.
As the SANS Institute notes, 20 minutes is not long enough to update your Windows PC before it is too late. If you take a new PC out of the box, plug it in to the Internet, and power it on, most people (most people? OK - a lot of people. Uh, alright - some people. Erm ... *sigh*. A few people. Happy?) know enough to immediately hie thee over to Windows Update and get the latest patches from Microsoft. Then reboot. And get more patches. And reboot. Ad infinitum. Oh, and don't leave out the latest anti-virus updates either. Gotta have those. Oh oh oh - don't forget Windows XP Service Pack 2, the gotta-have update from Microsoft, which "may be as small as 70 megabytes (MB) or as large as 260 MB".
And users are supposed to download all this in less than 20 minutes?
Forget it. You and I both know the truth. Most people start their computer and head over to eBay to look up auctions for Precious Moments figurines, or start reading email, or check out their son-in-law's newly posted photos of little Susie and that scamp little Johnny, or fire up a game of Pinochle on Yahoo! Games. Windows Update? Huh? What's that? Why do I need to "protect" this computer? I just bought it!
And soon enough, Grandpa and Grandma's new Windows computer is spewing out email ads for offshore casinos, and SUPERLOW!!! mortgage rates, and \/[EMAIL PROTECTED] and ([EMAIL PROTECTED], and God knows what else.
And it took just 20 minutes."
-- William T Goodall Mail : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web : http://www.wtgab.demon.co.uk Blog : http://radio.weblogs.com/0111221/
"Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons." - Popular Mechanics, forecasting the relentless march of science, 1949
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