14 DAY TRIAL // Despite the many security improvements included in the most recent versions of Windows, having an up-to-date antivirus solution running on a system still appears to be a mandatory thing to do given the growing number of attacks and infections targeting users.
But statistics provided by Microsoft reveal that users of older Windows versions enjoy playing with fire, as many of them don’t run any antivirus software on their computers, while others keep them off.
Specifically, the data that was published by the software company in the Security Intelligence Report Volume 22 concerns systems that aren’t listed as “protected,” which means they’re not having an up-to-date antivirus solution because of various reasons.
In the case of Windows Vista and Windows 7 installs, the top reason is that no antivirus is installed, with more than 50 percent of unprotected computers running any of the two operating systems said to be going commando.
“On Windows Vista and Windows 7, unprotected computers predominantly report having no AntiMalware software installed at all. On subsequent Windows versions, Windows Defender is enabled by default if no other antimalware software is present, so the number of computers reporting no antimalware software is very low,” Microsoft explains.
Out-of-date antivirus protection
As far as Windows 8 and 8.1 users are concerned, the problem here is that most of them keep their antivirus off because of a reason that’s too hard to understand, while another substantial number of users forget to update their security products.
This is what is happening among Windows 10 users as well, as the biggest problems here are out-of-date and snoozed antivirus solutions.
Both Windows 8.1 and Windows 10 come with Windows Defender pre-installed, and even if third-party protection is disabled or removed, antivirus security is still offered. On the other hand, just like any other antivirus solution, Windows Defender needs to be up-to-date as well, and Microsoft ships new definitions regularly to make sure the latest threats are detected and blocked.
