darxus

A new major security vulnerability was just announced:

"A remote, unauthenticated attacker could execute arbitrary code or cause a vulnerable system or application to crash." Microsoft Windows, Office, and IE bug: http://www.us-cert.gov/cas/techalerts/TA10-285A.html

This is where a lot of spam comes from. People running Microsoft software which has always been amazingly inept at security, that ineptitude is exploited, spam transmitting software is installed and starts spewing spam. Got anything on your computer you might not want the exploiters to see? They can see it. Ever type in anything you wouldn't want them to see, like logins to bank accounts, social security numbers, or credit card numbers? They can log that too.

You can try Ubuntu Linux without installing it, by booting off a CD (which is slower than a regular install). It's free and it runs on the same hardware as Windows. It doesn't tend to be so bad about security. Macs aren't as bad either.

Some Windows specific programs can be run under Linux via Wine.