There’s an AP story on the increasing trend toward crackers (really script kiddies) turning to home computers as targets. The article sort of misses the main reason why home computers have become targets — script kiddies often simply scan banks of IP addresses and hack whatever returns the result they’re looking for. Whether the computer is a home or business computer is irrelevant in those cases, any old victim will do. Ultimately, what’s going to have to change is the software industry. We need operating systems and applications that are secure out of the box, most people can’t or won’t take responsibility for securing their own computers. I think that what’s going to happen is that businesses are going to pressure Microsoft (and others) into better securing their products (even home products) out of weariness with banks of home computers being used as launch pads for attacks on business computers.