Security Alerts and Running NonAdmin

There has been a lot of news lately about malware exploiting the vulnerabilities Microsoft described with the patches they released last week.

Some article I read pointed me to this good site: Websense Security Labs

It has an example, "Malicious Website / Malicious Code: Phishing via Hosts File", which provides another good example of the dangers of running as local Administrator. If you run with diminished rights and with the NTFS protecting the Windows directory, then the hosts file cannot be modified by processes you launch.