£55,000: The growing cost of virus clean-up

With a new malware variant seeming to hit the wild every few days, business is feeling downbeat about the virus situation, new research has revealed. But one sector is no doubt loving the virus boom – disaster recovery.

Research from ICSA Labs, an independent division of security firm TruSecure, reveals that almost nine out of 10 companies believe the situation is getting worse and nearly a third reported a 'virus disaster' last year – up from 15 per cent the previous year.

A virus disaster means, according to ICSA Labs, a situation where a quarter or more of all PCs or servers are infected with a virus at the same time. While 'just' 30 per cent have suffered a virus disaster, virus encounters are far more prevalent, with the survey turning up 108 infections in 2003.

Larry Bridwell, author of the report and ICSA Labs' content securities programs manager, said that one of the main problems dogging both antivirus companies and users alike was the faster spread of malware, leaving reactive security struggling to keep up. "Humans just can't keep up with a 10-minute global spread," he said.

It's a far cry from the halcyon days of 1996 when there were a mere 10 infections per 1000 machines and even 2002 fared slightly better, with 105 infections.

Bridwell added that the results of the research weren't all bad. "There's good news and bad news. Viruses are more dangerous, virus traffic is growing and viruses aren't just a nuisance any more, they cost businesses money. But while some companies have reported virus disasters, there are a lot of companies out there that haven't and that means they're doing things right," he told silicon.com.

The serious virus situation is backed up by research from antivirus firm Symantec, whose Internet Security Threat Report showed that there was only a two per cent increase in the number of new vulnerabilities reported to the public between 2002 and 2003 but reported that the attacks are now more severe than in the past.

silicon.com readers are in no doubt over how serious the problem is. At last count, silicon.com's current poll, viruses - more of a threat now than two years ago?, shows 67 per cent of readers think that the situation has worsened and 21 per cent believe it to be the same. Let us know what you think by taking our poll here.

While businesses are left counting the escalating costs, the disaster recovery industry is counting its cash. According to the research, the cost of picking up the pieces after a virus attack was £55,000 per organisation per event – up 23 per cent from the year before.