80% of infected PC users unaware - study

A study of home PCs released today found that about 80% had been infected with spyware unbeknown to their users, News.com reports.

The study of 329 home PCs was funded by America Online (AOL) and the US National Cyber Security Alliance. According to AOL chief trust officer Tatiana Gau, users were mostly unprotected from online threats and largely ignorant to the dangers.

"No consumer would walk down the street waving a stack of cash or leave their wallet sitting in a public place, but far too many are doing the exact same thing online. Without basic protections like anti-virus (AV) and firewall software, consumers are leaving their personal and financial information at risk."

Among the other alarming discoveries, nearly three in five users do not know the difference between a firewall and AV software, and two-thirds of users do not have a firewall installed on their computer.

While 85% of PC owners had installed AV software, two-thirds had not updated the software in the last week, and only 20% of users had an active anti-virus on their machines.

Digital Mind Corporation (DMC) has released a portable music player and file storage device with 100GB of storage.

According to TechWeb, the DMC Xclef 500 device has 20 hours of battery life and includes direct encoding, voice recording, FM radio reception and recording, and support for digital music file formats including MP3, WMA, Wave and ASF.

The device is compatible with PCs and Macs without special software and can also be used as a high-capacity backup device, says DMC CEO Jim Collier.

"We see a growing demand for ultra-high-capacity portable storage media and expect 100GB drives to be common in our portable audio, as well as our new video products currently being developed for release early next year."

I/O Software today announced the availability of a new smart card-based multi-factor authentication product that can be combined with biometric technology and USB tokens.

The SecureSuite SC card provides secure Windows logon as well as strong authentication for other Microsoft CAPI/CSP-based applications, and can be configured for various levels of security, says Ippei Suzuki, I/O software sales and business development VP.

"It is well suited for systems that require something more secure and convenient than PIN authentication to protect the critical data stored on the card. Employee ID cards, student IDs, patient cards at hospitals, citizen ID cards, the applications are endless."

SecureSuite SC is available worldwide and is planned to support various types of smart cards. The card supports Biometric Application Programming Interface, which supports the majority of the biometric devices available in the market today, adds Suzuki.