98% of PCs vulnerable to attack

Almost every PC is running at least one application that leaves it open for attack, according to a new survey from vulnerability testing firm Secunia.

The survey gathered information from 20,000 PC users who downloaded an inspection program, and found 98% have at least one application running that is vulnerable to attack.

The group warns that the statistic is alarming, as even savvy computer user had unprotected programs installed.

“Has the world improved since the last look at the numbers? The short answer is no. Nearly every PC continues to run with several insecure programs. If anything, these numbers are worse than [11 months ago] when we generated them initially,” the firm told itnews.com.au.

“The total number of PCs/users included in these numbers is 20,000, and 98.09% have one or more insecure programs installed on their PC. Hence 98 out of 100 PCs that are connected to the internet have insecure programs installed.”