UK: No. 1 in family 'zombie' PCs

The UK leads the world in number of home PCs that are actually "zombies" (under the control of malicious hackers), the BBC reports. Computer security firm Symantec issued a report saying that "25.2% of the world's remotely controlled PCs are found in Britain." The US is close behind, at 24.6%. Reasons cited? The rise of high-speed, or broadband, connections to the Net and families' ignorance about PC security for broadband connecting. Here's a separate BBC piece on how the zombie PCs are manipulated (for distributing spam, manipulating online advertising services, identity theft, and denial-of-service attacks). For help, see my "What if our PC's a zombie?!" and "The 10 Commandments of PC Security" and "Caught a virus?" at PC World.