Nonviral threats were the number one reason consumers called Dell's tech support last year, said Maureen Cushman, one of three primary legal contacts for Dell's consumer business segment. 'They represented 12 percent of all tech support,' she said. 'Data shows that spyware calls are longer and require much more troubleshooting. Usually the complaint is that the computer is performing slowly. This slowness is often perceived as a hardware problem, which hurts our brand.'"