According to a recent study conducted by the SANS Internet Storm Center, this is now the average amount of time that an unprotected PC, connected to the Internet, will be virus or malware free. After that, you’ll probably be hit by something bad. Apparently, this time used to be 40 minutes a year ago – enough time to download patches, virus definitions, etcetera (assuming that you have a high speed connection). But the now 20 minute time is, typically, not long enough for somebody unprotected to get protected before their computer is compromised.

This all just points to the need for computer software (at the basic OS level) to be more adaptable to problems and to be able to “fend off” unknown attacks, at least for a long enough period of time until you can get the right “medicine” in place to take care of it. In other words, computers need to behave more like our human immune systems.

While the situation is alarming in general, what’s even more alarming is that the average amount of time that an unprotected computer will be “safe” has decreased by 50% in only one year. It doesn’t bode well for the future.