Virus attacks: Users despair in losing battle

US companies claim they are losing the fight against virus attacks despite investing what little funds they have into security systems.

In a survey by Information Security Magazine 90 per cent of companies claim to have invested dwindling IT budgets in anti-virus software, but 88 per cent said they are still hit by internet infections such as Nimda, Code Red and Lovebug.

The survey backed-up recent reports from Gartner which claimed that flaws in web server security software, such as Microsoft's IIS, are discovered on a weekly basis, and the need to continuously install patches has greatly increased the total cost of ownership and maintenance time.

Dr Neil Barrett, technical director with security consultants IRM, said the problem of internet worms is going to get worse, despite heightened security spending, as they become more prolific and sophisticated.

"All the security systems in the world won't protect you from the IIS worms we've seen. They look, walk and talk like legitimate web traffic. Of course patches should be up to date, but we practically need weekly patches to keep up with the failings, and there are time constraints on that," he said.

Atul Hindocha, chief technical officer with the Institute of Directors, also warned that IT departments are fighting a losing battle.

He said: "Some people make it their life-long ambition to break through security devices. As soon as you patch a flaw, they find a new one. We will always be in a catch-up scenario."

He added that patching security flaws was already becoming a full-time job in certain sectors, adding extra costs to over stretched IT budgets.

While the majority of companies continue to spend on IT security, the amount of money available to spend is running dry, with 29 per cent of respondents reporting a fall in IT budgets over the past 12 months and seven per cent forecasting a drop in the next 12 months.