The ever increasing deluge of spam & viruses means that computers have more sick days than there owners.

Research by Yahoo found that the average PC has nine sick days a year.

The study found that PCs are out of use for 49 hours more than six working days, while there owners battle spam, another three working days are lost due to viruses.

On average, UK workers take seven sick days per year.

Yahoo found that 70% of home users have fallen victim to a virus over the past year. Fewer than 50% of users are aware that computers get viruses by opening email attachments while only 17 % knew you could get a virus by downloading a file.

More than 75% said they deleted all spam, just over 50% notified their ISPs and expected them to take action, while 16% admitted to replying.