> The best anti malware on any version of windows has always been to make your default account you use everyday a non admin account.
In the early 2000s up thru about 2012 I'd agree with you. Post-Vista malware adapted to UAC and now all malware works well as a normal user. Any data your normal user can access (local or on a remote CIFS server) is fair game for ransomware. Limiting administrator rights doesn't do anything to prevent the malware from getting at your data.
Persistence has moved to per-user, non-Administrator, too. Of course, all the various quasi-malicious customized versions of Chrome that end users inevitably install when they go searching for software to end-run their IT departments operates the same way.
I do think your daily driver Windows users shouldn't have administrator rights. It just isn't going to help much with malware.
I use physically separate boxes for my most sensitive activities (banking, mainly) but you could do nearly as well having separate non-admin Windows logons and compartmentalize your access to data you don't want ransomed. Isolation between different user accounts on Windows is actually fairly good. Just limit the common data the accounts can access.
Personally I've always wanted to use Qubes (and stop using physically separate machines) but I haven't taken them time to learn their contrivances.
Edit: I should have said "quasi-malicious customized versions of Chromium", not Chrome.
It will help stop the spread quite a bit however (even if it can access user local data). There's a reason escalation path attacks are still the gold standard (start small and move up).
You can also run something like applocker and whitelist all the apps you use.
Also instead of separate physical boxes why not just use a VM ?
> It will help stop the spread quite a bit however (even if it can access user local data).
User's should be running limited user accounts for daily-driver Windows machines.
Having said that, today's attacks are all about the data. It's all about exfil/ransomware/blackmail because there's money to be had there. On an individual home user PC there's no lateral movement or bigger targets to attack.
> You can also run something like applocker and whitelist all the apps you use.
That's a bit overkill for a personal machine and it won't be licensed for AppLocker anyway.
AppLocker is also a gigantic pain-in-the-ass on corporate machines. My experience with configuring AppLocker for anything other than very task-specific computers is that it's a huge and unending ordeal of whitelisting, trying again, whitelisting more, trying again. Wash, rinse, get complaints from end users, repeat.
> Also instead of separate physical boxes why not just use a VM ?
Pragmatism. I have a bunch of extra low-spec laptops laying around. My machines are, for the most part, cast-off Customer garbage. I haven't actually spent money on reasonable machine since about 2015. >smile<
> Also instead of separate physical boxes why not just use a VM ?
>Pragmatism. I have a bunch of extra low-spec laptops laying around. My machines are, for the most part, cast-off Customer garbage. I haven't actually spent money on reasonable machine since about 2015. >smile<
But you either need to setup a secure tunnel on each one, or lose access anytime you are away from home.
> But you either need to setup a secure tunnel on each one, or lose access anytime you are away from home.
Mostly isn't a problem for me. On the off chance I'd need the banking remotely I'd just take it with me. Mostly I don't do the sensitive stuff remotely and I rarely travel anymore.
Like I said in the parent post, I should be using Qubes. I'm just lazy.
Edit: I should have said "Chromium", not Chrome. They are repackages of Chromium, usually with functionality to send browsing activity to a third party.
"Wave Browser" is the common one that comes to mind immediately. I have several flagged in the "endpoint security" software I support, though.
The workflow is: (1) User wants some software functionality they don't have, (2) they search-engine using keywords like "convert Word to PDF", (3) they find a program that promises to do the thing they want, (4) they download it and click thru any warnings because they "want the thing", and (5) they end up with persistent per-user malware installed in their "AppData" folder.
It cannot. There are malicious third parties who have made distributions of Chromium that are fully functional browsers, installing in the user's AppData folder w/o Administrator rights, that have additional "functionality" like exfiltrating browsing history or displaying extra t
This is really what any Electron-based app is. It's just Chromium running out of the AppData folder. There's a whole ecosystem of "shadow IT" software that installs out of the AppData folder, meant to end-run IT and central control, that functions great w/o Administrator rights.
I thought that was a pretty common pattern now for a variety of software tools. Was pretty sure that Chrome + Firefox did not need administrator privileges to be available to a user.
In the early 2000s up thru about 2012 I'd agree with you. Post-Vista malware adapted to UAC and now all malware works well as a normal user. Any data your normal user can access (local or on a remote CIFS server) is fair game for ransomware. Limiting administrator rights doesn't do anything to prevent the malware from getting at your data.
Persistence has moved to per-user, non-Administrator, too. Of course, all the various quasi-malicious customized versions of Chrome that end users inevitably install when they go searching for software to end-run their IT departments operates the same way.
I do think your daily driver Windows users shouldn't have administrator rights. It just isn't going to help much with malware.
I use physically separate boxes for my most sensitive activities (banking, mainly) but you could do nearly as well having separate non-admin Windows logons and compartmentalize your access to data you don't want ransomed. Isolation between different user accounts on Windows is actually fairly good. Just limit the common data the accounts can access.
Personally I've always wanted to use Qubes (and stop using physically separate machines) but I haven't taken them time to learn their contrivances.
Edit: I should have said "quasi-malicious customized versions of Chromium", not Chrome.