09.26.06
Symantec: home users account for 86 percent of all targeted virus attacks
Home PCs are considered the weakest link in internet security systems because many home PC users do not care about using security systems and anti-virus tools, making such systems easy targets for the criminals, said Symantec. Much as 86 per cent of targeted excluding virus attacks were aimed at home PC users in the first six months of 2006, the company said. In the second half of 2005, this percentage was 93.
Internet Explorer’s bug count increased from 25 to 38, Firefox went up from 17 to 47, and Apple’s Safari browser increased from 6 to 12. Only Opera saw its vulnerability count decline a little, from 9 to 7.
Actual attacks on the browsers spread beyond Explorer, with 31% of attacks aimed at more than one browser, and 20% aimed at Firefox.
Microsoft had the longest exposure-to-patch time in the browser industry, according to Symantec. It took Microsoft an average of nine days to issue a bug fix, while Apple published a patch within five days, Opera within two days and Mozilla within one day, Symantec said.
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