Home PC security: Still lax

We're getting better, but home PC users are still slackers where PC security's concerned. A survey of US households by AOL and the National Cyber Security Alliance found that 81% of us lack "at least one of three critical types of security," CNET reports. Those three critical things are firewalls, updated antivirus protection, and anti-spyware software. The survey also found that 56% of us have no antivirus software, or hadn't updated it within a week (ideally, you have an antivirus *subscription* service, because daily updates is barely enough); 44% didn’t have firewall software properly configured, and 38% lack spyware protection. The good news is, the number of family PCs with correctly configured firewalls "rose to 56% from 28% a year ago" (attributed to the firewall installed by Windows XP Service Pack 2), and 44% have virus protection, up from 33% a year ago. See also InformationWeek's "Microsoft's OneCare goes live" and, in NetFamilyNews recently, "PC security in a nutshell" and "New PC security tips."