So, Malta has one of the highest rates of Internet virus cover in Europe. But at the same time, about 50% of Maltese internet users have seen their machines infected by a virus, Trojan horse or other types of malware.

This is a strange state of affairs. Antivirus software is nowadays complex, yet easy to use. Not only will it go through your mail and automatically siphon off and filter malicious emails, but it will also warn you when a web page is considered a threat to your computer.

Malta is not the only country in Europe to fare badly in terms of online security, but we are one of the worst.

To be fair, there are many programmes that can deceive a lot of users. One of the classics is a pop-up box which shows that your computer is being ‘scanned’ for viruses. In reality, this is just an animation and the pop-up continues to deceive people by featuring a double ‘x’ box, meaning that when people try to close the window, they inadvertently click on an x that does not close the window.

What it actually does is redirect the user to a link where the virus or malware will be downloaded automatically. Emails are another culprit. We are not talking about the famous Nigerian scams or requests for ban details. In this instance, we are talking about spam emails that enter people’s inbox and are opened by the user – the result is mayhem.

But, perhaps the crux of the argument boils down to internet porn and chat. Hackers are not stupid. They know that if a scantily clad .gif animation pops onto a man’s desktop, a good percentage of them are going to click on it to see what it’s all about.

Internet web traffic monitor Alexa.com shows clearly that porn sites are well and truly used in Malta. The aim of this leading article is not to enter the sphere of morality and porn, but merely to demonstrate the links between porn sites and virus infections on computers. Moreover, when one continues to analyse Alexa’s data, it becomes clear that a lot of Maltese also make use of torrent sites. These are basically packets of data that are linked across the whole world through different users. When they are all put together, one gets a video file or music… It’s a sort of collective, yet illegal, file sharing network. And again, hackers are not stupid. They often claim that a top-notch box office film is hosted on a link, when in reality it is just a virus, waiting to be clicked on by some unsuspecting novice. Anti-virus software is essential, but the user also has a responsibility. If one clicks on naked women and the latest illegally hosted blockbuster, then one is asking for trouble!