Downloading Software Safely Is Nearly Impossible

Re:Downloading Software Safely Is Nearly Impossible by riskable on Tuesday March 04, 2014 @10:32AM (#7340763)

I posted some details as to why Windows is inherently insecure at a fundamental, architecture level in the thread above this one:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7338118

Also consider for a moment that everything is executable by default in Windows. Meaning, you download a binary from wherever, double-click on it, and it will execute.

Here's how that works on a Linux workstation: You download something, explicitly set the execute bit on the file, then you can double-click on it to execute (assuming it is statically compiled for the correct architecture).

The average user does not know or care how to set the execute bit on a downloaded file. This alone is a huge hurdle for attackers to overcome.

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Re:Downloading Software Safely Is Nearly Impossible by stinos on Tuesday March 04, 2014 @10:56AM (#7340949)

I know/get that, so it kinda answers the first question.

But then the other one remains, basically for any OS: if signature-based scanners aren't good enough, how do you properly check you are secure? Is something like connection logging sufficient?

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