16,000 new viruses this year

This is for all those people that say to me. "There haven't been any new viruses lately have there?" It's really amazing to me that people think if it's not on the national news it doesn't happen.... According to Pc Pro, Sophos has reported that 16000 new viruses have been added to their database this year. Along with that comes a flood of 1940 new viruses last month added to Sophos' virus signatures. (That mark is a record for one month.) They do give credit to Microsoft for SP2 for Windows XP making the internet a safer place...

Plug an unprotected XP computer to the Internet and there's only a six per cent chance of avoiding infection within an hour. Add in SP2 and that figure plummets.

Yet that's clearly not the end of the story. And Microsoft itself is concerned over its own figures showing that barely 30 per cent of customers are running up to date antivirus software.

Ultimately, they see Apple as a good solution for home users wanting to avoid the current wave of viruses which mostly target Windows PC's. Both Apple and Linux get mentioned...

But there are other options. Plug an unprotected Apple or Linux box onto the Internet, and you can expect to see the infection rate flatline, said Cluley.

So, other than the 1900+ last month and the 16,000 this year, no other new viruses out.