"Protip against driveby infections (the ones in the browsers): Disable addons in your browser and only activate the ones you need. Chromium and Chrome for example let you disable all additional content like flash, html5, pdf and java in the options, you will see a grey box instead of the content and can manually run it using right-click -> Run. Chrome options -> Content options -> Plug-Ins -> Disable all or Click-to-play. Chrome also allows you to whitelist sites you trust, like youtube. This will make you immune to driveby infections regardless of the version of your java or adobe reader, because you will only be able to click and run content, that is VISIBLE on the site. Malicious content is ALWAYS hidden in a 0pixel iframe! This also stops the nasty flash advertisements implying you can't aim precise enough to win an iPad3."
This is one thing I've been trying to convince people to do for ages but, for some reason, that one extra click turns so many people off. The extra minute or two I probably spend a day clicking on plugins to activate them will pale in comparison to how much time I'll have to spend recovering from being infected.
I've actually stopped using Firefox because it re-enables plugins that I've disabled (maybe it's more accurate to say it allows 3rd-party software updates to re-enable them).
This is one thing I've been trying to convince people to do for ages but, for some reason, that one extra click turns so many people off. The extra minute or two I probably spend a day clicking on plugins to activate them will pale in comparison to how much time I'll have to spend recovering from being infected.