My Latest: Desktop Audits Vista Security Discuss My Latest: Desktop Audits in the Windows Vista forums; Hi All: You may know that I use the Passmark Performance Test to monitor the performance of my PC's and to do maintenance, or whatever, when performance appears to ...

[Znod]

Hi All:

You may know that I use the Passmark Performance Test to monitor the performance of my PC's and to do maintenance, or whatever, when performance appears to fall off (more later on a separate thread). But, here's my latest: the Desktop Security Audit:

https://secure1.securityspace.com/sm...top_index.html.

I honestly don't yet know totally what the audit does. But, the general idea is to "provide detailed and comprehensive information on vulnerabilities and open ports found, along with the steps on how to fix them, and to prioritize vulnerabilities found by severity and category."

I did my first desktop audit today on my laptop. The results look good, I think. I had only two low-risk vulnerabilities. Here is what the site says about low-risk vulnerabilities:

"We view these vulnerabilities as problems typically only if the information they provide or access granted can be used in conjuntion with a one or more other vulnerabilities to compromise your system or network. These vulnerabilities are usually not problems in their own right, but could potentially lead to problems in conjunction with other services."

Here are the categories I was tested on, etc.:

"Backdoors
Windows
Misc. (2 low-risk vulnerabilities)
Firewalls
Windows : User management"

The audit reports that I have zero open ports found via its port scan. On the topic of open ports, the site says:

"While having 0 ports open is very good, you should be aware that this does not guarantee you are secure. You need to consider the following items:

* The port scan did not include UDP ports
* Vulnerabilities such as trojans that "phone home" cannot be detected by a port scan
* You may not be protected from email viruses."

I am not sure what accounts for my apparently good results. I use Ad-Aware SE Plus (with Ad-Watch Real-Time Monitoring) and avast! Home (free). I also have windows Firewall turned on, and our router has a firewall. UAC and Windows Defender are off.

What accounts for my seemingly good results? What do my results really tell me. Any thoughts?

[felix8406]

Originally Posted by Znod

You may know that I use the Passmark Performance Test to monitor the performance of my PC's and to do maintenance, or whatever, when performance appears to fall off (more later on a separate thread). But, here's my latest: the Desktop Security Audit: https://secure1.securityspace.com/sm...top_index.html.

Did you get the Desktop Security Audit as part of a Passmark deal?

[Znod]

Nope, I paid $19.95, as I recall, for one year's unlimited testing. I have not yet purchased PassMark. I keep meaning to look around to see if there are alternatives. And, PassMark does not yet claim Vista compatibility, but it seems to work equally well in XP Pro and Vista.