12 million people suffered a computer virus attack in the last six months
The results come despite 95 per cent of people claiming to use antivirus or firewall software, according to the findings from moneysupermarket.com.
Of those who have suffered an attack, 39 per cent described the assault as causing a major disruption to their system. A further one in 10 (10 per cent) said the attack, rendering their computer unusable, and one in twenty (5 per cent) admit to having personal information stolen.
The survey of 2,088 adults found that almost one in 10 (9 per cent) admitted experiencing the virus after visiting an 'adult' website. These kinds of attacks are most common among men (27 per cent compared to 21 per cent of women) and the younger generations, with 38 per cent of those under 20 and 30 per cent of those in their twenties admitting to experiencing virus problems on their computers.
