Report: Enterprise systems much safer than consumer

Companies or enterprises are half as likely to encounter malware as consumers and other users without professional IT management, according to the newest Microsoft Security Intelligence Report released Friday. The analysis, based on tens of billions of reports from computers using Microsoft security software between July and December 2015, found about 11 percent of domain-joined PCs encountered malware during the fourth quarter. In comparison, about 22 percent of non-domain-joined systems did so during that quarter. Domain-joined computers belong to an Active Directory Domain Services domain -- used almost exclusively in enterprise environments. Non-domain computers also encountered more software-based malware, such as Adware and browser modifiers or software bundlers, but domain-joined ones encountered slightly more ransomware.