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Virus Cost Estimate For 2001 Tops $10 Billion

Posted by timothy on from the say-ahhhhhh dept.

Snootch writes: "CNN has a story on the costs of virii - they're absolutely collossal, and remember that the $10 billion figure is just *so far this year*...scary. The article gives a pretty good breakdown by virus, and while it says little else that the average /. reader won't know by now, it's an interesting read all the same. To quote Red Dwarf's Kryten, 'Smug Mode,' but I note that every single one mentioned in the article, bar one (Code Red), was a client-side Outlook virus ..."

"My other thought was this: Considering that according to the article, nearly half the money was spent cleaning infected systems out, then the virus-checker industry, and therefore the implications of Symantec's recent patent, are even bigger than I realised ... *gulp*" Of course, estimates like these are often made by people with vested interests in the effect such numbers have, and there are a lot of costs that are very tough to estimate accurately -- like sysadmin time.

6 of 239 comments (clear)

  1. outlook by net.chook · · Score: 1, Offtopic

    All your virii are belong to outlook =)

    --
    --chook
  2. Re:Mission critical by smunt · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    This must be Thursday, I never could get the hang of Thursdays.

    Is that SO?

  3. cnn by devonbowen · · Score: 0, Offtopic
    Is it just me or have others noticed that a large fraction of Slashdot stories come from CNN these days? I read Slashdot for things that I can't find in popular media. Otherwise, what's the point?

    Devon

  4. Re:I run Windows & Outlook, never had a proble by Computer+suck! · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    no I am not. I have not had a BSOD ONCE!

    Win2K is _stable_ (not great, i'd love to be running a BeOS-a-like, but hey)
    Win2X is poo.
    it's quite simple.

    playing my super-kewl, stable Loki games

    While I play _new_ computer games... but hey ;-)

    --
    Insightful but Overrated Troll
  5. Just means too many people are using windows. by Leimy · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    HEHEHEHE

  6. Sneezing, the 20 billion dollar menace! by zenyu · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    10 billion is a lot? I haven't looked at the figures lately but I'm sure our world economy is north of 10 trillion a year. We should be fighting sneezing at work if we should care about this virus.

    Besides, it could make us a lot of money. Simply fire all the people who click on the "infect me" icon. Consider it a free IQ test administered randomly.