Unpatched Windows PCs hacked in four minutes

Disturbing reading on The Register about the amount of time it takes for an unpatched Windows PC to be compromised simply by being connected to the internet - such as you might do when setting up a machine and attempting to run Windows update for the first time.

So - can you patch it before it gets owned by the baddies? Well - you have four minutes. This is described as "odds that you wouldn't bet on in Vegas". 

Having a home router/firewall combo with network address translation should solve the problem and you might expect corporate LANs to be safe places to plug a machine into - but you never know. Only takes one compromised laptop brought in from home or some dingbat downloading and running something they shouldn't...

SANS have some interesting Windows reading - including how to secure your Vista machine out of the box for novices. Sticking Linux on it maybe?

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