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General discussion

Firms step up the battle against malicious software

Dec 1, 2003 7:05AM PST

Consumer education is a front-line weapon

There is a kind of software that has consistently gotten faster and more powerful and is available for free worldwide. Unfortunately, it is "malicious software," the insidious purveyor of viruses and other threats.

The overall rate of attack activity from this category of high-tech threat, known commonly as malware, has risen nearly 20 percent over the past year, according to Symantec, a security company.

Computer security experts say consumers should have, at minimum, antivirus software that is updated regularly and a firewall, which can keep unauthorized data from entering or leaving the machine. Security companies are trying to meet consumers' need to address the various threats by blending their protections. Major antivirus companies, including Symantec, McAfee and Trend Micro, offer packages of Internet security programs that include antivirus and firewall protection, along with some combination of protection against user-monitoring "spyware," pop-up ads and unsolicited e-mail messages, or spam. Those companies offer free trial versions of software, and Computer Associates International, which makes security software for businesses, announced last month that it would make its antivirus and firewall software available to consumers free for one year through Microsoft's security site, www.microsoft.com/security/protect.

"What consumers are going to be hearing more and more," a spokesman for AOL said, "is if you only have a high-speed pipe, you have a high-speed sewage pipe."

http://www.iht.com/articles/119783.html

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