Peter Jackson column
Feb 16 2006 By Peter Jackson, The Journal
I was laid low by a nasty bug the other week.
No, I didn't succumb to bird flu, but my home PC was rendered useless by a virus. This meant it was out of action for a few days and I was several pounds worse off paying for the debugging.
As a sufferer, I am by no means alone. According to a story in last week's Northern Business Daily, internet users on Tyneside are 18 times more likely to catch a computer virus than a cold.
And cable company Telewest also reports that one in four people are wasting thousands of pounds debugging their machines, with UK users spending £3bn on the problem this year.
Some, apparently, have even thrown their computers away in frustration. And I know how they feel.
The problem is not just the faceless vandalism of the virus, but the more sinister one of internet fraud.
That is likely to be more of a problem by the end of this week, as security experts have warned that fraudsters will use fake Valentine's e-cards and fake links to get hold of bank and credit card details.
There's no shortage of advice on how to protect yourself from these threats, but it sometimes seems more straightforward just to get the virus, or Trojan, or phishing, or dodgy cookies, or any of the other incomprehensible sounding threats out there.
You can get anti-spam software (mine only filters out the e-mails I want to receive), virus protection, firewalls and anti-spyware. But make sure you don't install more than one virus protection, and make sure you update it once a week, or more often if you are a business user, and lock down anything sensitive under sensible passwords, and vary your route to and from work each day, and honestly! Life's too short.
No wonder - again according to Telewest - that 10% of users are scared of shopping online and that 43% won't open an e-mail attachment, even from friends.
ICT has obviously become one of the major industries of the modern world, but I wonder whether it will be overtaken by the security industry it has spawned, an industry that is doomed to be forever locked in a battle of measure and countermeasure with the hackers and virus creators. A battle that we will have to pay for.
