“Internet users are finally starting to succumb to the devastating effects of this malicious new brand of malware and are altering their online habits accordingly. According to a report by the Pew Internet and American Life Project, 91 percent of Internet users have been affected by spyware (curious that that figure would match the Windows installed base), 80 percent have stopped opening email attachments, and 48 percent have stopped visiting unknown Web sites. OK, so maybe people are overreacting, right? Well, consider this statistic: According to the UK security firm Sophos, a typical Windows PC has a 50-50 chance of being infested with malicious software within 12 minutes of being connected to the Internet. Maybe we should have paid more attention to those Apple Switcher ads after all,” Paul Thurrott writes for Paul Thurrott’s WinInfo.
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: What’s spyware?
Related MacDailyNews articles:
Sleazy Microsoft sells out anti-spyware Windows users, downgrades Claria Gator to ‘ignore’ – July 07, 2005
Study shows battered Windows PC users scared to go online; Mac users surf freely – July 07, 2005
Defending Windows over Mac a sign of mental illness – December 21, 2003
Who’s Paul Thurrott??
I have windwos XP, and have NEVER had any trouble on the intraweb!
What happened to the old Paul Thurrott that I knew and hated. Now he’s making sense lately. It’s scaring me.
“Who’s Paul Thurrott??”
Rumor has it he lurks on Mac message boards under the name “Reality Check” and makes a complete ass of himself. I can’t believe he would actually say something that makes this much sense.
Of course this is all old hat to us.
lier-
liar is spelled with an “a” not an “e”
Yeah, a guy in my lab says he doesn’t have trouble with spyware either, all he has to do is run some software that gets rid of it once in a while.
I see his monitor from where I sit and between virus checkers, spyware scanners, a free firewall, and M$ updates, he gets windows popping up on his screen all the time – it’s almost as annoying as spyware…
simply amazing. These are unbelievable times we are in.
HOLY CRAP!!
look out! hell’s freezin’ over again!!
I love getting attachments that I know are actually windows viruses. I just sit and double click on them over and over and laugh my ass off the whole time Im doing it.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
Sounds like a ploy to get me to click on his website….I’m not falling for it this time either.
I saw one Mac user who claimed to have spyware on his/her Mac….He/she posted a comment on one of the other Mac sites (I don’t remember which one)….the person seemed sincere, but I have not seen any other reports of spyware on OS X. Has anyone here ever gotten spyware?
Not trolling, just curious. 1 possible spyware infection on OS X vs 90% of all PC users.
According to the UK security firm Sophos, a typical Windows PC has a 50-50 chance of being infested with malicious software within 12 minutes of being connected
You know.. they say 60% of the time it works.. every time – Anchorman
As long as you don’t plan on keeping that PC for longer than 12 minutes you’re okay, right?
Well.. then there’s a 99% chance that after 30 minutes you’re infected..
Whammy! 🙁
BTW. Nice curve ball Paul
” Maybe we should have paid more attention to those Apple Switcher ads after all,” Paul Thurrott writes…
O.O
Okay, now Paul…I know you’re not feeling well lately, but you have to take this slowly. You’re scaring us now.
Seriously, this is good that even Paul sees this. It’s even better that he’s writing honestly about it. I don’t say this often, if ever, but good job Paul.
When does the probability reach 100%? Within 15 minutes?
C’mon guys, Paul’s been a Mac user for years. You can’t honestly say that Mac has always been better than Windows at everything. Yes, we’re in a new Golden Age of computing now that OS X is maturing, but Paul is just reacting to that. I’ve even been known to bash a finder window here, or a hung process there. In the OS < 10 days my systems crashed plenty. Windows was more stable and had actual preemptive multitasking. Macs were also vastly more expensive before Steve came back and came to his senses.
We’ve all grown. Paul has too. Now give cretid where credit is due. Don’t bash him for bashing Apple. Apple needed it.
thought it had been a while before we heard something from him and comes out with something truthful *shock horror*
wanna know what else is annoying beside Windoze and spamware, it’s all those freakin’ ads popping up on MDN.
whatever happened to those flashing ads from this morning and all the references in postings? was it all a dream???
dogfriend
Jul 08, 05 – 02:52 pm
Sounds like a ploy to get me to click on his website….I’m not falling for it this time either.
I saw one Mac user who claimed to have spyware on his/her Mac….He/she posted a comment on one of the other Mac sites (I don’t remember which one)….the person seemed sincere, but I have not seen any other reports of spyware on OS X. Has anyone here ever gotten spyware?
Not trolling, just curious. 1 possible spyware infection on OS X vs 90% of all PC users.
Not spyware but one of the guys where I work got emailed a Mac Classic specific virus. It didnt have any effect on his system. We still run MS Outlook 2001 in Classic on 10.3 I think he was just being cautious, our Admin just deleted the attachement.
Anyone see the irony between this story and millions of people using Windows?
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory?id=920398
when did this revelation hit our dear paulus? seems like a slow summer in windowsland, nothing new. wait… nothing new for quite some time!
maybe we should have listened… what? to logic? reason? THE OBVIOUS?
next week, paul and mossberg [sic] team up to announce the spherical nature of earth.
sheesh
PC’s don’t have problems with spyware as long as they don’t get on the internet. Otherwise you have to run 2 or 3 different programs to clean your PC everytime.
I’ll stick with my Mac and stay on the internet without any spyware at all.
If Windows users would only keep their systems uptodate, with current anti-virus and anti-spyware, active firewalls, etc. there would so much less of a problem. And then Mac users would say ‘well we don’t have to worry about any of that’ and to some extent that is true. But even Mac users should take security precautions and many are not. I use Mac OS X, Linux, Windows XP, and Windows Server 2003 and the security precautions I take are similar between the platforms, and I have no more security problems with the Windows systems than I have with Mac OS X or Linux when it comes to security.
Mac- I use those same platforms everyday aswell. I dont have any security issues on any of them…Mac, Linux, Windows, Solaris…etc..
dogfriend.
Sounds like a ploy to get me to click on his website….I’m not falling for it this time either.
You are so right. Hold the line.
MACINTOSH today, MACINTOSH tomorrow and MACINTOSH forever!
“lier-
liar is spelled with an “a” not an “e””
Don’t you realise that spelling is not taught in our schools any more? It’s socialism thet get’s pumped into the chidren today.
“the security precautions I take are similar between the platforms”
Why?