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Safety in (small) numbers?

If you use Windows on your laptop or PC then you're probably aware that it's not a bad idea to install some anti-virus and anti-malware protection.

Because Windows is such a popular OS (ie: such a large target), evil little sods often invest huge amounts of time and effort in trying to discover holes and vulnerabilities they can exploit to turn your computer into *their* computer.

Most of the spam we receive these days comes, not from a spammer using their own PC to send these emails, but from spambots -- the hijacked PCs of regular folk, many of who are horrified when they eventually find out that their computer has been used for such purposes.

In order to help protect against this kind of hijacking, or the covert installation of things such as trojans, spyware and keyloggers, most folk opt to install one of the commercial anti-virus products such as Nortons, McAfee, Kaspersky or whatever.

And you'd think, having done this, your chances of being hit by malware would be significantly reduced -- right?

Well in the case of Nortons (as I've previously lamented), the "cure" is often worse than the complaint. Machines loaded up with Nortons often seem to chug along as if they were infected with legions of spambots, back doors and viruses. Attempts to uninstall this horrible anti-virus software frequently end up "bricking" the computer to the extent that it will no longer boot.

However, this is nothing compared to the woes which have befallen users of McAfee's antivirus (AV) product.

It seems that a flaw in this AV software has made it even easier for the evil little sods out there to turn your computer into a spam-spewing robot.

So much for the "peace of mind" promised by McAfee eh?

According to this BBC story, a vulnerability in the software has opened the doors to spambot creators and left McAfee and its customers looking rather red-faced.

Surely this has to be the ultimate humiliation for an anti-virus vendor -- finding out that their product actually makes it easier for spammers to use your machine as a staging point for their dross.

And meanwhile -- the small population of Linux users around the world smile politely and feel smug.

But should they?

There was a time when it almost looked as if Linux would pose a serious threat to Windows on the PC desktop but I can't help feel that time has come and gone.

Increasingly secure releases from Microsoft has made it easier to build a resilient Windows-based machine and from here, it appears as if the small amount of momentum Linux on the desktop had achieved is quickly falling away.

Mind you, as a linux user, I don't mind that at all. It means that the OS I'm using most of the time and exclusively for my online activities will indeed remain a small target and therefore hardly worthy of the attention of all those evil little sods.

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