Trojan viruses, worms and scareware may be a major problem for computers all over the world, yet the UK is dealing with the threat much better than its peers, according to a new report.

Microsoft revealed in its latest Security Intelligence Report that for every 1,000 scans carried out by the firm, only 4.9 terminals in Britain needed to be cleaned up, falling from 5.7 last year and nearly half the figure of 8.6 found in the global average.

Cliff Evans, the head of UK security at Microsoft, said that one virus in particular - Taterf, which targets gamers - is a major risk and one that can be seen as the modern-day equivalent of an "old boot sector virus" which must be treated with a lot of caution and safety measures.

He continued: "We'd recommend, in addition to automatic updates, firewalls and up-to-date anti-virus, that users never log into an account unless they're on a machine they trust, and don't download cracks or tips unless from a trusted server."

Today (November 3rd), Microsoft and Yahoo! announced that their search deal would be delayed to 2010.

In a recent survey of SMEs for Connect, the two most important benefits of outsourcing were guaranteed response times and allowing in-house IT staff to concentrate on more strategic issues.