Hard drives are just as much your property as your house. We have laws in place to protect our homes and ourselves from intruders. Hopefully some day legislation will be passed to make Malware completely illegal. Enforcement would be tricky, but so is protecting our homes. Awareness and a commitment to "smart-surfing" on the internet are our first line defenses for now. I hope that you gain something useful from this article and that you take the practices it prescribes to heart.