BBC News: Windows Worm Numbers "Skyrocket"

Over the weekend, I received an abnormal amount of calls from friends about not being able to boot their computers. Turns out that most of them have caught malicious worms that have recently been flying around via e-mails and live messenger. Some of them might also derive from users that seem to use a lot of BT. Here's the pattern that identifies the similarities between all the victims I have spoken to over the weekend: All of them didn't have proper anti-virus protection installed on their computers and that most of them at the same time also use their computers for important business functions along side personal usage. Mean while, this article popped up on BBC:



With the rising number of malicious viruses and worms out there, here's my 2 cents:

Go get a copy of AVG. It takes care of both viruses and spyware while being low on resource consumption. Keep that up-to-date religiously, and also keep your windows updates coming. This is a simple solution that has worked very well for most of my clients and friends that take my advice. *knock on wood* ;) That said, nothing is full proof but security practices are all about reducing risk rather than attempting the impossible; complete elimination. Even so, you will loose quite a few less gray hairs as long as you do your due diligence on reducing risk.