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Software on Christmas computers 'may be out of date'

People who are receiving a computer this Christmas are being wanrned that it may not be adequately protected from viruses.

A senior technology consultant for internet security firm Sophos has warned that while computers may seem to be new, their software may be a few months old.

Graham Cluley writes on his blog that if the software is not up to date, the security of the computer may not be sufficient.

Cluley said: "There's an assumption that a computer straight off the shelf will be ready to go, but the reality is that you will often be spending much of Christmas afternoon downloading many megabytes of security patches for your brand-new PC.

"The first job after unwrapping a computer - whether it runs Windows, Mac OS X or Linux, should be to make sure that the system is properly protected - applying appropriate patches, installing a personal firewall and updating anti-virus software.

He added that a computer virus would be a "very unwelcome Christmas present".

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