Users are the reason why their computers get infected
The anti-virus companies are doing their darnest, but there’s something they won’t be able to factor in when doing their software, the human error.
From Jan. 1 to Nov. 25, the top 100 attack programs infected 53% of their victims by duping them into downloading something from the Internet. An additional 12% of the infections tracked globally were caused by users opening e-mail attachments.
Just 5% of the infections were related to an exploit of a software vulnerability, said Trend’s analysis.
“That’s something we can’t engineer against,†said Ferguson. It’s also is why Trend Micro and other security vendors have stepped away from a pure anti-virus detection and deletion model, and instead have been bringing in other protective features, such as domain reputation ranking and URL filtering, to their products.
Educate and be vigilant regarding malicious websites and downloads, if you do, you’ll be a whole lot safer.