Virus attacks, recovery costs increase

The number of virus diasters - incidents in which 25 or more PCs or servers were infected at the same time by the same virus, causing significant damage - was up 12 percent in 2004. Of the 300 survey respondents, 112 reported a virus disaster, up from 92 in 2003.

Recovery time from the disasters rose to seven days with costs estimated at $130,000 last year, increases of more than 25 percent from 2003.

The ICSA Labs Virus Prevalence Survey queried 300 midsize to large companies and government agencies worldwide. ICSA Labs, an independent division of Cybertrust, tests and certifies security products.

Ninety-one percent of survey respondents said they believe the malicious code problem was somewhat worse or much worse last year than 2003.

www.icsalabs.com