Chances are you, at one point or another, have experienced those nagging pop ups letting you know your antivirus is set to expire. Most people close the pop up and promise to take care of it later. If you are one of the many people or small businesses who neglect to actually update these crucial programs, you could be leaving your computer open to viruses and malware. According to the latest edition of Microsoft’s Security Intelligence Report, expired antivirus software is almost as bad as having no antivirus software.
Who is at risk?
According to the SIR 17, a large segment of both consumer and business PC’s are at risk. The study was performed on what Microsoft considers to be “non-domain” computers. The study defines these to be any PC’s, which are not controlled from large enterprise administrative servers. This means that almost all of the computers used by both individual consumers and small businesses, which have expired antivirus, are at risk of contracting a potentially disastrous program.
According to SIR 17, many PC owners believe that expired antivirus programs offer some, although incomplete protection. The study found this was not the case.
How great is the risk?
The SIR 17, which was published in Nov. 2014, found the problem to be more widespread than most realize. Computers with expired antivirus were only slightly more protected than computers with no antivirus at all. The study also found that computers with stale antivirus, verses those with regularly updated antivirus, were almost four times as likely to contract one of these harmful programs.
According to the study, 2.2 percent of computers with expired antivirus became infected. This is in comparison to the 2.4 percent of computers with no antivirus, and 0.6 percent of computers with up to date antivirus.
The most likely scenario
Microsoft found the month of January to have the highest percentage of computers with up to date antivirus. This could support their theory that the reason for most expired antivirus correlates with the holidays and new computers. According to Microsoft, many individuals and businesses tend to update their PC’s over the holiday season.
The SIR 17 explains that most computers come with trial versions of antiviruses, which normally expire about a month after installation. This could be the reason so many individual and business PC’s are left vulnerable.
If you think your business PC may be running expired antivirus, or for more information on it support in Riverside, call AIS at (951) 276-0010 today.
