> Luckily, some were sensible enough to run it in a virtual machine.
or, that virtual machines should be more common - mum and dad's computers should have vm software installed, so that they can then be free from having to worry bout things they download. The mantra could be " run in the vm, and you'll be safe".
Using the same virtual machine for everything means its just as much of a hassle to wipe it as to wipe your real machine, and your regular activities are at risk from the crap you install into the vm -to be secure it would have to be machines that reset themselves, not just virtual. What about when mum and dad actually want to install a new program or save some files?
they may be susceptible to having fallen victim to sneaky trojans from previous file executions, but resetting a VM to a previous image state is trivial.
an infected vm is no victim. Lets say you downloaded a pirated game which also has malware in it. You play said game in a vm specifically made _for_ that game. So the malware only runs when you are actually using the vm.
You'd have a vm for each specific piece of software that is untrustworthy, and sharing of files can occur thru sanctioned channels (such as a local, safe temp directory shared by each vm, or read only mounts).
