none said:
I manually select what W7 will update on my PC's. Noticed most updates
prevent remote code execution or unauthenticated remote users taking
control. I've disabled any remote control services from running, am
firewalled and virus/malware protected.
"Remote code execution" has nothing to do with "remote control services"
other than sharing the word "remote" in the phrase.
Remote Code Execution ("RCE") refers to malware exploits that allow an
attacker to inject code of the attacker's choosing into your system and have
it executed. Firewalls and antivirus programs will filter out some of the
attacks, but the sophistication of some of the attacks is terrifying.
A firewall, for example, offer no protection whatever if (for example) you
initiate a browser connection to an infected website...and well-respected
websites have been known to be hacked and reconfigured to deliver malware to
anyone opening a page from those servers. You don't necessarily need to
*do* anything at that web site; merely allowing it to display a page may be
sufficient to permit it to exploit an RCE vulnerability.
And if you have a typical "antivirus/malware" protection tool it probably
relies on signature matching. Don't get me wrong; this is a necessary tool
but it's nowhere near complete protection. Much malware comes in a number
of different forms with the same logic ("polymorphic malware") that evades
signature checking by morphing the code into functionally identical but
different binary forms. A trivial example:
Original:
x=y+1
Morphed:
x=y-(-1)
which have the identical result but use different code to achieve it.
Microsoft's EMET tool looks at behavior rather than signatures. It too is
not a complete solution to the need for malware protection but it helps and
should be on your system.
Is there any benefit to installing these 80 updates ... especially
considering they usually slow the machine down?
If you don't care about being infected, don't install the patches.
I don't agree with your statement "they usually slow the machine down";
while I'll agree that some can take an agonizingly long time to install
(especially the ones that affect .NET) most of the security updates close
off vulnerable holes to prevent malware from exploiting them. Most of the
delays related to security are built into the kernel and aren't added by an
update, but in any case if you run without patching - with or without
firewalls and antivirus programs - you'll almost certainly see far more
performance problems due to malware that has taken control of your system
than you will see from the patches that might have prevented that infection.
Joe
