Last week, Australia's Internet Industry Association (IIA) proposed "a new scheme to provide all Australian internet users with free trial antivirus software. In announcing the scheme, IIA chief executive, Peter Coroneos said, 'Statistics available to us now indicate that as many as one in four Australian internet users do not have any protection against the latest viruses. These unprotected users are not only a threat to themselves, but also to other internet users everywhere, because their infection becomes the start of a new chain of attack throughout the internet community...'
"The IIA initiative, supported by major vendor members of the association, is designed to give users access to immediate protection at no initial cost... Mr Coroneos said that the scheme was modelled on the IIA's highly successful antispam empowerment initiative which has seen over 100,000 Australians access the IIA's Nospam page which offers free trial antispam software. 'There is no reason why our National Antivirus Initiative shouldn't result in Australians having the highest rate of installed protection anywhere. That is our aim.'
"...The IIA National Antivirus Initiative page can be accessed at www.iia.net.au/novirus."