A joint McAfee and National Cyber Security Alliance study, released today to kick off National Cyber Security Awareness Month, reports that while 98 percent of 378 respondents believe keeping security software up to date is important, less than half - 48 percent - of their computers had not been updated in the past month.

An underground economy where professional-grade crimeware and stolen data is exchanged in forums and auction-style websites has turned into a commercialized and extremely lucrative undertaking, the latest Symantec Internet Threat Report shows.

Sony, which suffered through a rootkit debacle in 2005, is at it again, according to one prominent anti-virus vendor. Researchers at F-Secure have discovered a rootkit on another Sony product, the Sony MicroVault USM-F fingerprint reader.