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Ask HN: How do you trust that your personal machine is not compromised?

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Re: Ask HN: How do you trust that your personal machine is not compromised?

#61

Post by jl6 »

BLKNSLVR wrote: post #38
jl6 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the backup question, this is one reason why I have a set of backups that are physically disconnected and not automated.

I have a backup NAS that's normally powered off, but it's scheduled to turn on, perform backup, shut down. It doesn't wake on LAN and there should be no way of knowing it exists outside of checking DHCP static addresses reservations - and now that I mention it, maybe I should remove it from there too. This minimises the size of the window, and network-snoopable information, required to compromise this set of backups.

If your main computer has had all its files encrypted by ransomware, will the backup NAS know not to replace the good backup with a bad one? i.e. hopefully it's not doing something like `rsync --delete`.

Re: Ask HN: How do you trust that your personal machine is not compromised?

#63

Post by amelius »

greggyb wrote: post #21
amelius wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you lock your computer every time you leave your desk? And do you always check for keylogger thumbdrives and such?

Yes. Why wouldn't you?

I have to physically go under my desk to see if my computer has been tampered with.

Re: Ask HN: How do you trust that your personal machine is not compromised?

#64

Post by thr717272 »

amelius wrote: post #20
gnfargbl wrote: post #9

Here's a short, fairly practical guide that you might find helpful: https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/files/Cyber-Essentials-Requirements-... . It is aimed mostly at small businesses, but I find a lot of the guidance to be pretty relevant to my personal IT. My even shorter (and incomplete) summary of the document would be: configure your router and firewall; remove default passwords and crapware from your devices; use a lock s…

Do you lock your computer every time you leave your desk? And do you always check for keylogger thumbdrives and such?

Lock my computer: Always[1][2].

Check for keylogger thumbdrives: I use a laptop so it would be immediately obvious. But now that you say it I haven't checked the charger USB-outlet on the back of my cabled keyboard.

[1]: it has happened I have failed. Once a year or something.

[2]: I sometimes try to allow myself to go downstairs in my own house to fetch a cup coffe without locking when I am alone, but I find it so stressful in practice I always lock it. I don't need to know but it is a good habit. I'm otherwise normal :-)

Re: Ask HN: How do you trust that your personal machine is not compromised?

#65

Post by pcthrowaway »

codetrotter wrote: post #5

Noone has drained my crypto from my wallets yet. So either my personal machine is not compromised, or they think the amount of crypto in the wallets is too low. Jokes on them though, cause I am moving my crypto to a hardware wallet eventually

Of course, a nation state is unlikely to 'tip their hand' so to speak.

If the U.S. has backdoors on every PC, they're not going to bother draining the wallets of "small fish"; they need to keep these things secret so they can go after terrorists

Re: Ask HN: How do you trust that your personal machine is not compromised?

#66

Post by Helmut10001 »

Separation of concerns is a good idea. Don't run everything together, e.g. multiple boot Os, or nested OS (windows with several WSL setups for different work, test untrusted windows apps first in windows development VM etc.). If you have a server, run dedicated VMs and work on those via remote, these days you can even stream your games from your dedicated VM. In case a game is compromised, it will at maximum compromise other games on the VM, but not your important work on another VM.

Re: Ask HN: How do you trust that your personal machine is not compromised?

#67

Post by NikolaNovak »

BLKNSLVR wrote: post #38
jl6 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the backup question, this is one reason why I have a set of backups that are physically disconnected and not automated.

I have a backup NAS that's normally powered off, but it's scheduled to turn on, perform backup, shut down. It doesn't wake on LAN and there should be no way of knowing it exists outside of checking DHCP static addresses reservations - and now that I mention it, maybe I should remove it from there too. This minimises the size of the window, and network-snoopable information, required to compromise this set of backups.

I think, perhaps ignorantly, That may prevent some human being or intelligent agent specifically targeting your nas.

I don't think it would help against situations where your primary system is being encrypted for a while, and thus your backups eventually get overwritten with bad stuff.

Re: Ask HN: How do you trust that your personal machine is not compromised?

#68

Post by hutzlibu »

jl6 wrote: post #34
hutzlibu wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"which providers I trust: * Software: Google, Microsoft" I trust that Google and Microsoft won't hack into my bank account and steal money, even though they could, but otherwise I assume they collect anything they want and can.

I assume they profile me, but I don't assume they steal my files.

They (hopefully) won't steal your ip or personal pictures, but there is so much telemetry and other phoning home going on, and without transparency or the option to really turn it off.

Re: Ask HN: How do you trust that your personal machine is not compromised?

#69

Post by windex »

Any way to actually monitor traffic at the PC or network level for an individual user? I see a lot of odd behavior by TVs, IOT devices, connected bulbs and such. None of them seem necessary to me. I feel windows could do a lot better with reporting or allowing users to clearly see what is communicating across the network currently.

Re: Ask HN: How do you trust that your personal machine is not compromised?

#70

Post by paulryanrogers »

ttctciyf wrote: post #56
gnfargbl wrote: post #9

Here's a short, fairly practical guide that you might find helpful: https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/files/Cyber-Essentials-Requirements-... . It is aimed mostly at small businesses, but I find a lot of the guidance to be pretty relevant to my personal IT. My even shorter (and incomplete) summary of the document would be: configure your router and firewall; remove default passwords and crapware from your devices; use a lock s…

> enable anti-malware if your OS has it . . . Would be interested in hearing other things Given the most common network activity is web browsing, it seems like enabling protections in the browser is becoming mandatory for the security-conscious. For me this amounts to enabling NoScript and uBlock[edit: [0]] plugins in Firefox, desktop and mobile versions, and disabling or locking down various "features". An additiona…

Firefox multi-account containers can be a more convenient way to isolate things, especially now that the container can be limited to only the allowed sites.

I also made an app and extensions to help me use multiple browsers, one per site. (Browsr Router)

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