Home PCs not as protected as owners think

By Byron Acohido and Jon Swartz, USA TODAY
Warning: Surfing the Internet can be very risky — much more so than the average home PC user realizes.
That notion, widely held in the tech industry, is borne out by a detailed survey of 329 consumers that included inspections of each of their home computers.

In findings released Monday by America Online and the National Cyber Security Alliance (NCSA), a picture emerges of consumers increasingly using their home PCs for sensitive, online transactions without adequately protecting themselves from cybercrime.

"Most people think they're safe, but they really don't know what's on their computer, and boy, are they vulnerable," says AOL spokesman Andrew Weinstein.

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2004-10-24-pc-security_x.htm