Valentine’s viruses vandalise victim’s PCs

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Sunday, 15 February 2009 11:11

IT Industry - Market

The threat does not only apply to those in the consumer space, but the enterprise space too, threatening businesses at a time when every successful infection only adds more fuel and cost to the fire that is the global financial crisis.

Although Valentine’s Day is now effectively over, there are many more significant days and events to come in 2009 which virus and malware writers will not hesitate to take advantage of.

Indeed, malware writers are really only giving a passing glance to Valentine’s Day, with the real action happening over in the banking world.

Banking trojans and malware are going ballistic, causing enormous pain to financial institutions and consumers, something that is being noticed at the highest levels.

At the World Economic Forum, Davos 2009, the statement was made that “Online theft costs $1 trillion a year, the number of attacks is rising sharply and too many people do not know how to protect themselves."

Most types of malware are now trying to steal personal information in addition to connecting computers to botnets. Thank goodness there are solutions such as TrustDefender available to protect users, with some financial institutions finally offering the software to its customers free of charge.

After all, when it comes to desktop computing, it’s a Microsoft world, for better or worse.

You could give the Mac or Linux operating systems a go and free yourself of Microsoft-targeting malware, forever, although for many this will simply be impractical for a range of reasons.

Still, who knows? You and Linux could be a match made in heaven for all but Microsoft’s accountants, with Cupid free to sling his arrows into the hearts of the malware mavens instead, where the arrows truly belong.