[identity profile] valiskeogh.livejournal.com posting in [community profile] techrecovery
Plague carriers Most users unaware of PC infections Tech News on ZDNet
A study of home PCs released on Monday found that about 80 percent had been infected with spyware almost entirely unbeknownst to their users.
The study, funded by America Online and the National Cyber Security Alliance, found home users mostly unprotected from online threats and largely ignorant to the dangers. AOL and the NCSA sent technicians to 329 homes to inspect computers.
Nearly three in five users do not know the difference between a firewall and antivirus software. Desktop firewall software regulates which applications on a PC can communicate across the network, while antivirus software detects malicious code that attempts to run on a computer, typically by pattern matching. Two-thirds of users don't have a firewall installed on their computer, and while 85 percent of PC owners had installed antivirus software, two-thirds of them had not updated the software in the last week. The study found one in five users had an active virus on their machines.



if you look to the bottom of the story, first comment is by me.

i'm not sure who is more stupid... the computer users in the study... or the AOL people who needed a study to find this out...

valis

Date: 2004-10-25 01:15 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] methedras.livejournal.com
See they need to make it sound official, to make out that this is a massive social tragedy and security risk, and that something will need to be done about it.

We all know the solution - Licences to use computers.

Date: 2004-10-25 02:09 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] taiirei.livejournal.com
I like the fifth comment more sorry 8-p HAH! Spit in your eye AOL!

Date: 2004-10-25 04:10 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] compwizrd.livejournal.com
and i'm impressed that 100% of those people let these tech's on their computer...

Date: 2004-10-25 10:50 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] jahbulon.livejournal.com
Spyware is my personal nemesis. If I were a superhero, with snazzy tights, Spyware would be a big octopus-like blob that I would have to fight with my awesome super powers (and snazzy tights) and it would explode into goo and then all the goo would turn into bigger Spyware Octopus things and it would get a bit out of hand but my tights and I could totally handle it.

I dream about it sometimes.

But seriously, I scare all the customers with spyware. I tell them its the next big thing, forget viruses, SPYWARE is where it's at, its so nasty that viruses use it as transport! But do they listen?

Date: 2004-10-25 11:04 am (UTC)
jecook: (Default)
From: [personal profile] jecook
Fully 90% of my trouble tickets have at least minimal involement of spyware. And for machines on dialup, it truely sucks.

Unfortunatly, Boss won't let me fix it by disableing Internet explorer and putting something like Firefox on instead, as he wants to do "neat tricks" with .net and automated rollouts and crap, which probably don't need IE as the default browser.

Date: 2004-10-25 11:55 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] zig-mover.livejournal.com
I'm sure if everyone in this community was included in the study, it would have brought the number down to about 79.99998%.

Yay for us.

Date: 2004-10-25 07:51 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] 110billion.livejournal.com
Which they'd round back up to 80% anyhow.

*mumbles crap about stupid end users*

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