I may have only been in this job for one year, five months, two days and nine hours, or thereabouts, but it's sometimes hard not to succumb to that age-old journalistic trait of pure, unadulterated cynicism. It's not entirely unprovoked, by the way, this peculiarity of our profession. Witness the first three emails in my inbox this morning: IM security vendor warns that IM threats are increasing to dangerous new highs; website performance is below par in 80 percent of sites, says site performance acceleration specialist; use Google Spreadsheets and your hair will fall out, says Microsoft - alright, I made that last one up.

However, one of the few opportunities I've had to shake off the shackles of my unrelenting pessimism was when I covered a recent story about Barclays Bank's decision to stump up for web security software for all its online customers. That's all it's customers, and for two years as well - more than a facile PR campaign this. Well, even if it is, I don't care because I'm a customer and I think it's a pretty good deal actually. As far as I know none of the other big high street names are doing similar things, though it surely won't be long before they follow suit.

The reason why this news gave me reason for renewed optimism is that it showed that these large, faceless and slightly intimidating organisations do sometimes get it right. Barclays' online division decided not to bully its customers into getting up to date on their web security by abnegating all financial responsibility for any fraud resulting from non-secure home PCs, though it could have done. No, it realised that the cost of around a million two-year F-Secure Anti Virus licenses was an acceptable one in the scheme of things, that it was great PR, and would go some way to reducing online fraud among its customers. All the more refreshing too, because banks tend to move about as quickly as a geriatric tortoise when it comes to innovation. But I wouldn't hold your breath waiting for them to roll-out two-factor authentication for online customers.