[clug] Whom could I approach to answer a Security question... How safe are Virtual M/c on

[Alex Satrapa]

On 12 Oct 2012, at 18:53, steve jenkin wrote:

> Running Anything But Outlook/Explorer is the first, most beneficial
> thing for any home user to do.
> 
> But Alt.Browser is not a complete solution - good to 80%?

There is a binary decision to make: do you, or do you not trust that the OS an all the applications you run apart from the browser, are uncorrupted?

If you have even the slightest suspicion that any of the applications or the OS may contain malicious code (e.g.: OS infected with key loggers, other application accidentally recording stuff from the memory space of your Internet Banking browser window, etc), the answer is "NO, I do not trust that the OS and all other applications are uncorrupted".

The alternative browser is a complete solution for the specific case of, "I trust the OS, but I don't trust Internet Explorer" (or whatever the main browser is that you might have been using).

> First cut, run a Linux VM on Winders, isn't good enough :-(

What about dual-boot? Or booting to Linux and running Windows in a VM?

Booting off a CD is the "take off and nuke the site from orbit" approach. The dual boot approach implies that you don't expect Windows malware to interfere with the Linux partition. You could dual boot and use an encrypted partition, which should reduce the likelihood of malware being able to compromise the Linux partition to the realms of, "someone is trying really hard to compromise that specific user."

Alex