I am using a Kubuntu 12.04 Live USB, and I'm wondering if web browsing is safe. There have been a lot of updates (150+ or something) since it came out. Specifically with the USB, although I chose the "Discard on shutdown, unless you save them elsewhere" option creating the LiveUSB, is there a chance that something malicious can sneak through? Mount my partitions and place something there, for example?
Ubuntu – Is it safe to browse the Internet with a LiveCD
internetlive-usbSecurity
Related Solutions
Firefox 3 or later contains built-in Phishing and Malware Protection to help keep you safe online. These features will warn you when a page you visit has been reported as a Web Forgery of a legitimate site (sometimes called “phishing” pages) or as an Attack Site designed to harm your computer (otherwise known as malware).
NOTE:
You can also install the following Add-ons for Firefox, for secure browsing.With flash and scripting off, all that is left in browser is html and images and these are not too dangerous.
Well, a good step is to start at the bottom and work up.
Apparently you do have ip connectivity and routing because you can ping an external machine.
Apparently you also have working DNS because you can resolve google.com to ping it.
Can you open a tcp socket? Try
telnet google.com 80from the command line and see if you get 'connected' or not.Can you do http from the command line? How about
wget -v http://google.com/robots.txt?If those all work, check a different graphical browser.
My guess is your firewall rules pass forwarded packets but block some essential packet to or from localhost.
Best Answer
"Safe" is always relative. You are safe from stuff messing with your operating system. But you are not safe from everything else:
In theory, one could mount your partitions and store data on them. But this data would have to be read again after the next reboot, which would require a different hack.
There are some hacks that write themselves into the master boot record (MBR) of your hard drives, meaning that the attack starts before the operating system starts. With a CD, that should be impossible. With the USB stick, I am not too sure.
So you are safer than before, but you are not "safe" in an absolute sense.