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Everyone's aware that the past year has seen hugh increases in the sophistication and volumn of email viruses and spam. Most consumer based anti-virus software does a decent job of scanning home user's POP3 email for viruses. But, for folks who are also retrieving email via additional services/protocols - like web-based html email, IMAP or Exchange clients, it's another story. At least for the present, most consumer A/V software is only pre-scanning POP3 email. If other protocols are being used, it pays to check with ones ISP and verify virus scanning for the other protocols is being done at their end. Firewalls are also becoming somewhat less effective in dealing with viruses (as some are now embedded in common attachment types, like zips, that users need open at their firewalls). Probably more than 50% of virus/spam traffic is coming from machines that have been previously compromised. Even grandma needs to get technical to use the net safely these days. This shouldn't be, but it is. If a larger percentage of internet users don't become more diligent in protecting their machines, the result will be the big players in the industry being allowed to embed hardware/software solutions in new PC's being sold. These solutions (which are already on the drawing boards) will in essence have the capacity to regulate what one can see, load and play on their own PC. In an era where corporate abuse of the public has become commonplace, this likely would be a cure worse than the disease. |
