Consumer Reports on 'State of the Net'

netbuzz writes "A " State of the Net" survey to be released today by Consumer Reports contends that Americans lost $7 billion over the past two years to malware and myriad online scams. Not surprisingly, a significant portion of this financial pain appears to have been avoidable, as the survey reveals a widespread continuing negligence toward the use of home firewalls and virus protection. As for underage children using MySpace and the like? There, too, the risks in many case look to be self-inflicted, as 13 percent of children fail to meet the 14-year-old age minimum on MySpace, and, as the organization notes: "Those were just the ones the parents knew about."

Comments

thankfully with vista out

[wakim1618]

those millions of people will be finally protected against viruses and spyware.... and against anything untrusted such as themselves

"Computer viruses have prompted 1.8 million households to junk their PCs over the past two years, while spyware has claimed another 850,000 machines in just the past six months."

Re:viruses, malware, et cetera

[CaptainPatent]

I hate to be the person that's just going to get modded down for this-- but maybe if >80% of computer users werent using windows Why yes... how dare you bash such a wonderful and secure operating system on a windows-loving forum.

Mods - Into attack mode

...and if that would include europeans

[iampiti]

...that would include the million or so that I lost to online sports betting. I never learn :P