A Zero Day Exploit is an exploit that is circulating before the software vendor has learned of it. They can linger around as un-patched vulnerabilities if the vendor is slow or unable to respond to them.
Security software with lots of bells and whistles tends to encourage end users to feel more secure. They have firewalls, Antivirus protection, all sorts of resident programs and pretty icons. Something pops up now and then asking for their input; again insuring them it is working hard to prot...