Install AV before connecting!!!!

[caroper]

SURVIVAL TIME OF UNPROTECTED PCS DROPS
Researchers at the SANS Institute's Internet Storm Center estimate
that an unprotected PC will be compromised within 20 minutes of being
connected to the Internet, down from an estimated 40 minutes last year.
The estimate is based on observations of vacant IP addresses, which
received reports approximately every 20 minutes. According to the
researchers, if those reports come from Internet worms, the unprotected
machine would likely become infected within 20 minutes, which is
especially troublesome because most patches that would protect the
computer take longer than that to download and install. Scott Conti,
network operations manager for the University of Massachusetts at
Amherst, said that, as a test, his institution recently put two
unprotected computers on the school's network, and both were
compromised within 20 minutes. As a result, all computers at the
institution will be checked before they are allowed to connect to the
network.
CNET, 17 August 2004
http://news.com.com/2100-7349_3-5313402.html

[loosecannon]

well any idiot that wants to connect a M$ machine directly to the internet should have there system confiscated ...

running unprotected machines behined a firewall is adequate until patches are applied ...

[ajax]

Shoot me if I am an idiot, but what about dialup?
I've been using my machine at home on ISDN without antivirus for years and never picked up problems (virusses). I've always been extremely cautious about emails and I don't visit dodgy sites (porn, pirate software etc.) I run SpyBot now and then, nothing really significant has come up.
Can my machine become infected just as quickly as compared to one connected on ADSL?

[loosecannon]

yes it can ... but remember most of these worms require a "bad" setup to start off with if you are not running any services on your pc you are better off even running windows 98 is less of a risk than XP [as xp runs more junk by default]