[privacy] Windows infections in the wild (or the futility of security on an insecure endpoint)

[coderman <coderman () gmail com>]

making the rounds:
http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=189400457
"Almost two-thirds of PCs that had an infection were infected by a
backdoor Trojan, according to Microsoft."

how many of these systems were used for handling business
transactions?  storing or processing personal information (web sites,
documents, etc)?  highly sensitive medical or financial data?

if privacy requires endpoint security what does this say about our
prospects in the near future? (and what have you done to try and
mitigate this problem?)

some select stats:
"""
Of the 5.7 million unique PCs from which the Malicious Software
Removal Tool (MSRT) has deleted malware, 3.5 million of them -- 62
percent -- had at least one backdoor Trojan.
...
"Rootkits are certainly present, but compared to other [malware types]
they're not extremely widespread yet," added Braverman. A rootkit was
present on 14 percent of the nearly 6 million computers that had to be
cleaned.
"""
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