What We Say vs. What We Do in Our PC Lives

A new study from McAfee in collaboration with the NCSA (National Cyber-Security Alliance) asked respondents to tell them about how well their PCs were protected from the core dangers (virus, spyware, firewall, spam, and phishing). Next, McAfee actually ran remote diagnostics on the respondents' PCs to compare their answers to reality.

Turns out that, according to McAfee, many of us are living a fantasy when it comes to PC protection. Right up there with "the dog ate my homework," "I floss everyday," and "I take my vitamins" is "I keep my PC up-to-date with core prevention software." But with the PC, I'll venture that most folks really thought they were telling the truth.

First the good news from the survey, according to Bari Abdul, VP of Worldwide Marketing at McAfee. Almost everyone surveyed recognized the importance of keeping safe online (98 percent) and almost all of them had heard about dangers like spyware (99 percent) and phishing (75 percent). Most believe they have taken steps to protect themselves with the proper security software like anti-virus (87 percent) and firewall (73 percent), though only 27 percent reported installing anti-phishing software.

The reality is not as pretty a picture. When the respondents' systems were scanned (with permission), McAfee reports that only 64 percent had firewalls properly installed, for example. Almost 50 percent of the systems were found to have outdated software installed even though 92 percent had responded that their software was current. Other big areas of discrepancy included those who reported having spam filters but did not have them at all or didn't have them turned on, as well as those not having a properly configured firewall when they thought they did.

Floss your teeth, take your vitamins, and check those expirations and updates on all of your software, pronto.