Britain is the worst country at updating virus software - or the most honest when talking to researchers.

Only 39 per cent of British small businesses update virus protection once a week, compared with 51 per cent of German companies and 73 per cent of Spanish companies. Some 20 per cent of respondents did not know that a virus can forward itself via contacts in your address book and 48 per cent did not know that viruses can store pornographic content on your machine without your knowledge.

Virus specialist McAfee, which paid for the research, was disappointed that education messages are still not getting through.

The survey also found there have been more "virus emergencies" in the first quarter of this year than in the whole of last year. ®

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