Home workers ignore virus risk

[InfoSec News <isn () C4I ORG>]

http://www.vnunet.com/News/1103469

Jo Ticehurst, Monday 19 June 2000

Despite the havoc caused by the recent spate of serious virus attacks,
such as the deadly Love Bug, many home and small business users are
still not regularly updating their antivirus software.

According to a survey by US antivirus reseller Central Command, almost
a quarter of US users do not update their antivirus software at least
once a month, leaving themselves vulnerable to newly created viruses.

The survey, which was emailed to nearly half a million PC users in the
US, revealed that the majority of PC users (65 per cent) had been
infected with at least one virus in the last 12 months. Of these, 57
per cent had lost data as a result of the infection.

Eighteen per cent of respondents said they had lost "moderate" or
"large" amounts of data, and 14 per cent said they had suffered more
than five virus attacks in a year.

Steve Sundermeier, technical services manager at Central Command,
said: "People who don't update to stay current with the latest virus
protection are opening a huge security gap."

Users need to update their software daily so they are protected from
the estimated 30 viruses that are discovered every day, he added.

Graham Cluley, senior technical consultant with UK-based antivirus
company Sophos, said UK home users are equally negligent at regular
updates.

"Most business users are pretty tuned on to keeping regularly updated.
But many vendors have stopped sending out updates on CDs and rely on
users remembering to get updates from the internet. We see new viruses
everyday and users need to keep regular updates to be protected," he
said.

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