'Anti-Virus? Unnecessary!" Some People Think

A new study conducted by AusCERT revealed that some users simply ignore the basic security measures which should protect them and their computers while connected to the Internet. The research included 1,001 Australia residents and was made with the help of Nielsen. According to the findings, no less than 95 percent of the respondents use Windows, no matter if we're talking about XP or Vista, while 4 percent use Mac OS X. What's interesting is that 11 percent of them never update the operating system while 8 percent ignore the anti-virus update function. This happens while 30 percent of the respondents click on the links included in spam emails.

And even worse, 23 percent of them admitted they had problems with malware infections but 14 percent of the respondents simply ignored them and avoided cleaning the computer. Getting forward to anti-virus technologies, 94 percent of the users installed such an application while 86 percent downloaded a firewall.

What's really shocking is not necessarily the fact that 6 percent of the respondents admitted they're not using an anti-virus application but the reasons for not installing such an application. According to the findings, 46 percent of the ones who didn't install an anti-virus said such a program is simply unnecessary because the risk of infections is low while 19 percent of them think these security tools are useless.

Firewalls? The same story. 27 percent of those who didn't install a firewall said it is unnecessary while 20 percent of them explained that it could be too difficult to install and use. Moreover, 34 percent of the people who didn't install an anti-spam filter, explaining that this is unnecessary and the risk is too low. This happens while the amount of spams is incredibly high with more than a half of the email traffic being represented by unsolicited messages.