Microsoft strikes again

All anyone who can code needs to do to make their machine “more secure” - is make it less vulnerable to MAINSTREAM mass-duplicated viruses that are written originally with a “standard operating system” to run on.

If 100 times more people are running windows than Linux, for example - then malicious code is going to be running on Windows more often than on Linux.
There WILL be Linux-specific viruses out there, but people won’t hardly ever encounter them, as the entire “auto update” infrastructure, by far the most vulnerable attack method of entry with windows - isn’t present in anywhere near the same degree.

“Auto Recovery” for windows - is even worse. Is there anyone left who keeps this switched on?

Without the virus being able to embed itself into the operating system itself - the malicious code merely sits on the machine as executable machine code files, .exe .com and .bin are just a few of the mainstream extention names for such files, but there are many others all the way down to “Basic” code (.vbs)

IF a file contains computer code that doesn’t need to be “compiled” or “interpreted” before it runs - then potentially that file IF executed - can cause the user’s machine any degree of harm.

I remember back in the 80’s - someone challenged me to write a piece of code that could “physically damage a micro”

The argument went “If you cannot tell this machine to turn itself off from software, then you won’t be able to damage it from code alone”.
Wrong.
Run a program that opens and closes the tape interface over and over.

The internal relay rattles itself so much that there’s a danger it’ll overheat and catch fire, definitely causing damage to the machine in the process…

Of course, we don’t use tape interfaces anymore - but the point I make here, is it is software control of physical devices that can be made to cause “code Damage” to machines - and this applies to ANY age and generation of computer.

Write some code that tells a physical device to make actual movement - and hey presto, all manner of things are then possible…