Quote Originally Posted by zanthor',index.php?page=Thread&postID=64655#post64 655]Download a [url='http://www.knopper.net/knoppix-mirrors/index-en.html
Knoppix[/url] ISO and you can boot this in a virtual machine and surf away with impunity. Since the environment is rebuilt every boot, there is no possibility of a keylogger or some such... since ti's a VM it can't bone your system.
I used to think this too, but there have been several reports of virus authors using buffer overruns in VM software to infect the host OS. If you think about it there is nothing magic about running in a VM. If the virus can own the virtual OS then it gets to treat your main OS as just a bunch of files on disk. No system file protection, no Defender, etc. Given the limited user base of VM software, a VM is probably more likely to have unpatched critical vulnerabilities than Vista/XP/Mac OS running on native hardware.

Anytime anyone tells you that X will make you safe from viruses try typing this into your preferred search engine: "X critical vulnerability". It's an equal-opportunity way to piss off fanboys of Firefox, MAC OS, virtual machines, ... you name it! :P