[ILUG] From the register. XP machine rooted in 200 seconds.

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Jason Corcoran (Jason at jcorcoran.net):

> I wonder if the Linux box had a firewall (shorewall or what ever)
> enabled by default.

It was the current default installation of Linspire with whatever's its
default IP-filtering script.  The study's abstract says:

   Linspire (Linux) ­ This system was installed using the default
   settings out of the box. After conducting our own security test, we
   discovered that the only open port was 7741, which did not appear to
   connect to any service or application.  Because this system responded
   to ICMP ping requests, there was a low number of attempts to
   compromise the system--795 attacks. This was the system which
   experienced the fewest attacks in the experiment. No attacks were
   successful because there were no exposed ports (services) to exploit.

Their definition of "attack" was probably the usual all-encompassing
nervous-Nellie sort employed by security consultants trying to drum up
business.  It's difficult to say for sure, because they don't specify.
At a minimum, "attacks" seem to include anything they classify as
port-scanning.

The two consultants engaged by _USA Today_ for this study were former
computer criminal Kevin Mitnick and researcher Ryan Russell, the guy who
tried to fast-talk my Linux user group mailing list about Linux malware,
as I detail in http://linuxmafia.com/~rick/faq/index.php?page=virus#virus5 .

-- 
Cheers,                     "All power is delightful, but absolute power
Rick Moen                    is absolutely delightful."  - Kenneth Tynan
rick at linuxmafia.com