What Are The Costs
Of Virus Outbreaks?

“Virus attacks continue as the source of the greatest financial losses.(1)” -Computer Security Institute “The effects of viruses and virus disasters are more far reaching than just dollars.(3)” -ICSA Labs

Computers and the Internet are necessary for modern business operations. Unfortunately, the more your business depends on computers and being online, the more it exposes itself to an increasing number and variety of security threats. Likewise, the harm these threats pose to the survival of your business is proportional to how much your business relies on computers and the Internet.

Among the many threats that can harm businesses, viruses and virus outbreaks continue to cause businesses to lose the most money. This was among the findings reported by the Computer Security Institute based on data collected from their 2005 Computer Crime and Security Survey. According to the Computer Security Institute, respondents claimed viruses caused organizations the greatest financial loss, over $42 million and approximately 1/3 of the cost for all computer security incidents combined (1). The total financial loss due to computer security incidents reported by 700 respondents was listed at over $130 million (reported by 90% of respondents) (2).

In the ICSA Labs annual virus prevalence survey, over half the respondents reported the latest “virus disaster” alone cost them over $40,000. (3)

There are other ways that viruses impact a business which may be more difficult to attach a figure to, but nonetheless still cost businesses real money. These include the time it takes to recover after a virus outbreak has occurred and organizational effects an outbreak has on a company. According to ISCA Labs survey respondents it took 31 person days to fully recover after a virus disaster and the top 3 effects viruses have on businesses are:

1. Loss of productivity,
2. Unavailable PCs, and
3. Lost data, and Lost access to data (3).

1. “2005 Computer Crime and Security Survey.” Computer Security Institute (www.gosci.com).

2. Ibid, 639 respondents out of 700. 3. ISCA Labs Tenth Annual Computer Virus Prevalence Survey (www.icsalabs.com).

ISCA defines virus disaster as “an incident in which 25 or more PCs or servers are infected at the same time with the same virus or an incident causing significant damage or monetary loss to the organization.”