4.4 percent in China have no AV – that might not be too bad

The number for the rest of the world might be 26 percent

There is a story making headlines on the computer security news sources today about estimates that 4.4 percent of Chinese Internet users have no anti-virus software, up from 3.9 percent last year. That’s about 17 million machines. The numbers came from surveying by the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) and China’s National Computer Network Emergency Response Technical Team (CNCERT).

CNNIC said it estimated that 384 million people in China use the Internet

Story here.

I went looking for figures for the rest of the world. Similar surveying doesn’t exactly pop out of Google, but I did find one story.

Netherlands-based security company SurfRight released results of a study they did in December. “32 Percent of Computer Users Still Infected, Despite Presence of Anti Virus Program”

They scanned 107,435 machines and found that 28,607 had no up-to-date AV: that’s 26.6 percent without functional anti-virus software.

Of course, SurfRight didn’t break out the group that has no AV installed at all as opposed to those who have it but haven’t updated it.

In any case, they all should be installing an antivirus.