Posted by Virus Bulletin on Aug 13, 2015
This Throwback Thursday, we turn the clock back to November 1994, when VB asked: what is the nature of the real virus problem, and how much does it cost?
Year after year, we see reports and surveys revealing the latest cybercrime figures and statistics — in 2015, respondents to PwC's Global State of Information Security Survey reported a total of 42.8 million detected cybersecurity incidents, with an estimated annual average financial loss attributed to cybersecurity incidents of $2.7 million among those who participated to the survey. We wondered how that compared with the virus statistics of the past, so we delved back into our archives to find a report on IT security breaches dated 1994.
It turns out that, 21 years ago, a survey of UK companies revealed that the average immediate cost of a virus infection was £3922 and it was estimated that the overall annual cost of virus infections (in the whole of the UK) could be 'circa £128 million'. Chris Hook of NCC Services Ltd, which ran the survey, summarized its findings for VB.
Chris Hook's report can be read here in HTML-format, or downloaded here as a PDF.
Posted on 13 August 2015 by Helen Martin
