According to a Leichtman Research Group study though “at the end of 2002, the leading [broadband] providers had accumulated a total of over 17.4 million high-speed Internet subscribers in the US.” That means that in the United States alone there are more than 17 million computers with fast connections most of which are connected to the Internet 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and that number continues to grow.
Every day new vulnerabilities are discovered for the operating systems and applications used on computers. The vendors release patches and updates to fix the flaws. Every day new malicious code- viruses, worms, Trojan horse programs- is discovered. Antivirus vendors release updates to their virus definitions to detect and block the new threats.
That brings us back to the issue. Home users in general don’t know enough about information security and aren’t aware of the need to patch and update consistently. They treat the computer like the other appliances in their house- use it until it breaks and then pay a professional to fix it or throw it out and buy a new one.
The lack of proper patching and virus protection affects the global Internet community though- not just the home user. It is like driving on the highway with no brakes or going shopping at the mall infected with SARS. If a person wants to buy a computer and set it up in their living room and not connect it to the Internet they can do what they want. But, once they add their computer to a network being shared by millions they have a responsibility to exercise basic security precautions.
In the past couple of years, Microsoft has worked to incorporate security into their products. They purchased or created various security tools including antivirus and anti-spyware and added features such as the Windows XP SP2 Security Center or their upcoming Windows Live OneCare product which seeks to manage virtually all areas of security and computer maintenance from a single application.