Eli5 why are computer viruses so rare now? Back then you can get a fleet of viruses just by clicking a link
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The internet several years ago was much less protected than it is now. For instance, major email providers do virus scans of attachments to help make sure they are safe, and they automatically disable content from other servers that could be used to spread malware. Unsafe plug-ins like ActiveX and Flash that were used for video and games and other things have been discontinued and safer ways of giving content to users are in place. A lot of the internet now revolves around like a couple dozen major websites that are all really interested in giving a safe browsing experience to users, whereas back in the day you could browse to Joe Schmo’s privately hosted photo gallery and potentially download stuff that way.
There is a difference in the software too. The big name Browsers are open source and people are constantly poking and prodding at them to report weak areas for the developers to fix faster. And at least Windows has a built in anti-virus to protect computers.
So long story short, people have to get a little more creative with their malware, which they do through things like apps for mobile phones that do dangerous things in the background without you knowing.
Its been 15 years since i last had to reformat my laptop and reinstall windows because of a virus. That was something i had to do every few years.
I took risks with napster and kazaa back then. Now you can listen on demand to any song on spotify or watch videos on youtube risk free
There have also been improvements in the CPUs themselves. 20+ years ago you could run code on the CPU stack (buffer overflow explots) with 32-bit cpus. Now CPUs (and operating systems) allow setting a no-execute status bit on regions of memory.
Software is made with a lot more attention to security. Clicking a link and getting a virus relies on your browser having a “chink in its armour” where some accidental wrong code causes something to happen that’s not supposed to happen. Clicking a link isn’t supposed to make anything happen outside the browser. Browsers are made more carefully with less duct tape, and they wear more than one layer of armour (so-called exploit mitigations, or defense in depth)
You can still get a virus by downloading a .exe file and running it, though. Less people get software by Googling it and downloading a .exe. It’s all app stores this and game launchers that.
* Windows has gotten better at detecting and removing malware, part of which is due to Microsoft Defender.
* Windows has gotten better at preventing malware spreading or executing remotely
* Fewer people are using Windows-based machines, they use platforms that are
* A smaller target
* Have better security design
* Are locked down with curated app stores
* Email systems have gotten better at detecting and removing malware
* Browsers have gotten better at detecting and preventing malware
* Governments are better at taking action to prevent the spread of malware
* Software has gotten better at closing vulnerabilities
* Hardware/firmware have gotten better at closing vulnerabilities
* More people are better educated about the dangers of malware today
* Malware has gotten better at hiding its presence
You can still “get a fleet of viruses just by clicking a link” it just has to get past all those barriers, and if it succeeds you’re less likely to know it’s there.
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