kx59 tries out Ubuntu Linux after his Windows box got a rootkit. Looks like not only was he able to "Nuke it from Orbit" (install a brand new OS over the old pwned one), but he got all his data copied off, too.
I need to update this old post to include what he did. Neat.
Tempting. I have some kind of spambot going that nothing I've tried so far can find. So far no response from GeeksToGo, either, and they've helped me in the past.
ReplyDeleteIn the last 6 months, 4 of my family's 8 (3/7 now, 1 died a coffee death) computers have migrated to dual-/primary- boot ubuntu...
ReplyDeleteThere are also live CDs (like Knoppix, although it's not particularly well suited to security recoveries; I forget what I used last, I only remember that it was in German and extremely effective so long as I could piece together what stuff did); if you don't intend to use Linux on a regular basis and have a premium on HD space, a live CD can be a good alternative.
ReplyDelete(Just make sure at the bare minimum it can access your file system and has the drivers for a backup drive, i/e an external HD or flash drive.)
Ubuntu 11.04 is working pretty well at accessing windows shares and running the 2TB harddrive i'm backing up to.
ReplyDeleteBorepatche's post downplays the severity of the situation. It's not my home computer that fubar'ed, it's the servers, NAS devices and workstations at the office. There a long backstory leading up to the circumstances that left us so under protected, on which I cannot comment right now due to the fact that somebody may be going to jail. (hint: it's not me)
Ah, we had someone copy most of our intellectual property on a thumb drive some time ago. They were authorized. I don't care what you do, sometime sooner or later it is not enough. Don't kick yourself too hard kx59! "You can do everything right and still be wrong."
ReplyDeleteI used Ubuntu for a couple years, but switched to MEPIS Linux when I got a new laptop, as it worked much better with my laptop's hardware than Ubuntu.
ReplyDeleteI'm done handing M$ my money and my time as a developer.
ReplyDeleteBeen using Ubuntu under VirtualBox on my Windoze system (and native on a few older notebooks) for a while now. Won't be long before I ditch Windoze as the native OS on my main systems in favor of Ubuntu or some other Linux flavor.
I've been working in Linux/Apache/PHP/etc for years now, with only occasional returns to native Windows development for the odd consulting client.
Methinks Microsoft is running on inertia, at least in the non-corporate world. At some point the Windows platform will become so irrelevant to consumers that MS will be toast. The xPad/smartphone stuff is going to hasten that demise, from what I can see.
But then, I may be full of BS. And I predicted that the iPad would fail. So much for my forecasting skillz.