The study, carried out by Information Week Research on behalf of
PricewaterhouseCoopers, claims to be the “broadest sampling ever
achieved in the security industry”. In a separate report also
released last week, Reality Research suggested that a realistic
expectation would be $1.5 trillion.
It is widely believed that the majority of damage is done
through the infiltration of computer viruses into networks. The
dangers associated with viruses have been well publicised since the
Love Bug virus attacked computer systems in May causing widespread
damage.
Representing Information Week Research, Rusty Weston noted that,
“the findings indicate that viruses are far more disruptive than
most people realise... lost productivity will undoubtedly force
many IT organisations to reassess their network defences and
security policies”.
The Department of Trade and Industry's Information Security
Breaches Survey 2000 revealed that 60% of organisations in the UK
have suffered a security breach in the last 2 years. Of these, only
a few could assess the true business implications of the breaches,
while those that could indicated that the cost of a single breach
was more than £100,000.
