Quote:
Originally Posted by zamler
This is the very attitude that I've seen time and again result in malware infections.
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It's not attitude at all - it's based on fact. If you have your machine patched, there are few if any active remote code exploits that would affect a home user. The worst one in recent memory would be the remote code exploits against RDP on port 3389, but even those were patched in a timely fashion.
The most prevalent attack vector for malware now is all via the browser, since open ports with remote code exploitability have been steadily decreasing to the point where they are rare, and the ASLR and DEP protection built into recent OS's like Win7 and OS X (to a lesser extent) makes a network based exploit very difficult.
Via the browser however, a compromised browser, Flash plugin, or Adobe Reader (to name three easy targets) is already inside your software firewall, and most firewalls will happily permit outbound connections from any process running on the system. Unless you've got it locked down so tight that you have to manually approve each outbound connection, the firewall buys you nothing in this scenario.