HACK ATTACK

TIRED of being threatened and bullied by makers of anti-virus software, your correspondent tried a little experiment several months ago. He decided to remove the various third-party firewall and anti-malware packages on a particular Windows machine in his office, and let it rely solely on the house-brand of security software (Microsoft Security Essentials) and what little added protection the broadband router afforded.

Barely a day had gone by without some report from Symantec, McAfee, BitDefender, Trend Micro, Kaspersky or some other security firm warning of the dangers that lurked out there in the online wild—and why the only solution was to buy a subscription (typically $20-60 a year) to the anti-virus suite being touted. Even your correspondent’s existing programs got in on the act. At least once a day, one or other of them would pop up with an alert boasting about the number of viruses, worms, Trojans, keyloggers, rootkits, spyware, hijackers or other nasties they had just saved you from.

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