31% of PCs are infected with malware despite anti-virus protection

Several independent studies show a large number of PC users still remain infected with PC malware even though their machines have security protections such as anti-virus software.

In one such study, by the European Union statistics agency EUROSTAT, revealed that 31% of PC users had malicious software in spite of the fact that 84% of users were running security applications including anti-virus, anti-spam and firewall. On top of this, 3% of respondents also reported financial losses because of pharming or phishing attacks, while a further 4% reported privacy violations involving data sent online.

Bulgaria (58 per cent) and Malta (50 per cent) top the list of most infected users. By comparison, Finland (20 per cent), Ireland (15 per cent) and Austria (14 per cent) did relatively well.

Trojans (59.2 per cent) were the most common types of infected found on compromised PCs, followed by viruses (11.7 per cent).

In a separate study by antivirus firm Panda, which has also just been published, showed that 50% of the computers scanned by Panda in January harbored malware. As with the EU study, Trojans were the single greatest problem – accounting for 59.2 per cent of problems. Machines in Thailand, China, Taiwan, Russia and Turkey were the most commonly affected. Panda's figures come from users of its Active Scan tool.