Wondering How Dangerous a Place the Internet Is?

The Denver Post has up the results of a "Honey Pot" experiment it ran over the last month or so. The experiment placed a number of computers on the internet - just connected mind you, not surfing the web or reading e-mail - and noted how long it took each to become attacked. The good news is that while every computer was attacked (with the exception of a Red Hat Linux installation) only an unpatched (i.e. basic install with no updates) Windows XP box was compromised. A fully updated Windows box, and all Mac and Linux boxes were secure and uninfected with virii or trojan horses. But all users should still beware. All computers were targetted and with persistence chances are all can be broken given time.