{"id":501,"date":"2017-08-24T11:30:34","date_gmt":"2017-08-24T16:30:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.baronsoftware.com\/Blog\/?p=501"},"modified":"2017-08-24T11:30:34","modified_gmt":"2017-08-24T16:30:34","slug":"half-windows-7-machines-dont-run-av-microsoft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.baronsoftware.com\/Blog\/half-windows-7-machines-dont-run-av-microsoft\/","title":{"rendered":"Half of Windows 7 machines do not run AV software"},"content":{"rendered":"

Half of Windows 7 machines do not run AV software<\/h2>\n

\"AV\"<\/a><\/p>\n

It has been disclosed by Microsoft that Windows older desktop operating systems remains more vulnerable to malware as of today. \u00a0The majority of users are still running older versions of Windows, without necessarily using up to date security software which is Anti-Virus packages.<\/p>\n

In its\u00a0latest Security Intelligence Report<\/a>, the company revealed that among all Windows 7 and Windows Vista PCs reporting statuses other than \u201cProtected\u201d to Microsoft, more than half of them have no type of protected software installed at all, which is pretty massive.<\/p>\n

Starting with Windows 8, Microsoft decided to turn on Windows Defender by default when no other anti-malware software is present. The majority of unprotected Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 PCs have their anti-malware software turned off. \u201cThis is not always deliberate: a number of prevalent malware families are capable of disabling some security products, potentially without the user even knowing,<\/strong><\/em>\u201d explained Microsoft.\u00a0The situation is not that much better with unprotected Windows 10 PCs: A big chunk of those machines are running with out-of-date signatures, and a significant part of the user base is also lacking full protection due to real-time monitoring being \u201csnoozed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Anti-Virus packages not installed mostly in Russia<\/h4>\n

In this other image, you can see which are the countries and regions with the highest percentage of computers reporting as protected by real-time security software in March 2017: these include Finland (92.%), Portugal (90.3%) and Denmark (90.2%).<\/p>\n

\"AV\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

If your PC is connected to the Internet, it\u2019s worth reminding that it\u2019s always recommended to install Windows security updates and make sure that your antivirus software is up to date. We invite you to check the\u00a0full report<\/a>\u00a0for more insights about the latest security threats.<\/p>\n

Baron Software does recommend to use Symantec Anti-Virus as well as MalwareBytes to at least reduce the amount of possible attacks. \u00a0Finally you must be very careful when reading emails and not to open up attachments from users you do not recognize.<\/p>\n