PEBKAC Still Plagues PC Security

Billosaur writes "ARS Technica is reporting on a study release by McAfee and the National Cyber Security Alliance (as part of the beginning of National Cyber Security Awareness Month) that suggests when it comes to PC security, the problem between the keyboard and the chair is even worse. PEBKAC has always been a problem, but the study highlights just how prevalent it has become. 87 percent of the users contacted said they used anti-virus software, while 70 percent use anti-spyware software. Fewer (64 percent) reported having their firewalls turned on, and only 27 percent use software designed to stop phishing attempts. Researchers were allowed to scan the computers of a subset of the users, and while 70 percent claimed to be using anti-spyware software, only 55 percent of the machines of those users scanned showed evidence of the software."

Comments

Re:Are you sure?

[kwark]

You are wrong on some points

1. you don't need to be root to cause trouble to others.
2. the executable flag doesn't control if things are runnable:
$ gcc -o hello ./hello.c
$ chmod a-x ./hello
$ /lib/ld-2.3.6.so ./hello
Hello World!
3. maybe.
4. we are talking about PEBKAC here, it involves some social engineering to get
5. I personally doubt it, the more mainstream linux becomes, the relative number of developers among them will drop.

But I hope you are right (maybe I'm just pessimistic).