Computer Viruses Are Bad. Operating Systems May Be Worse.

An amazing idea: the worst threat to security in your computer may not be a virus, or a piece of stray mal-ware. It’s your operating system.

Or so says Brian Krebs, blogging for The Washington Post. And he’s probably right.

The issue, says Krebs, is that most of the bad stuff that tries to infect your computer does so by mucking around in your operating system, and that your operating system gets harder and harder to protect over time. This is true.

Further, Krebs argues that Windows users have the biggest problems, because it’s Windows being targeted by a huge percentage of virus writers. This is also true.

What’s fascinating (and please remember that this is not truly a Windows issue; Macintosh and Linux computers get viruses, too) is his solution: you can completely avoid having sensitive data stolen by doing something that is becoming more and more simple: don’t type anything or use shopping or banking web site on a computer  unless you boot that computer from a clean, protected, pristine CD or DVD-based copy of the operating system.

This is almost a brilliant idea. Human nature being what it is (lazy) and technology understanding being what it is (low), the idea means very little here in the real world. But with Virtual Computers becoming more and more prevalent, it’s an idea that will lead to real solutions, and soon.

THAT’S Business Change.