Apparently, some two thirds of home users think they are safe from online threats, but 20 percent of home computers are infected by a virus, and 80 percent have problems with spyware and adware. That's the word from a survey conducted by Internet service provider America Online
, who say that people who think their machines are safe are just plain wrong.
Some findings of the survey:
-More than 70 percent of those who participated in the survey falsely believed they were safe from viruses and online threats.
-Almost 20 percent of those were currently infected by a virus.
-Spyware or adware programs were found on 80 percent of the computers analyzed.
-Of those machines with Spyware or adware problems, an average of 93 spyware or adware components were found.
-About 90 percent of those whose computers were infected with spyware didn't know about the infections and didn't know what spyware programs are.
-A majority of users, 67 percent, also go without firewall software.
Our advice: 1)Make regular visits to windowsupdate or use automatic updates, 2)Install anti-virus software and keep it up to date, 3)Install Firewall software, and - you guessed it - keep it up to date.