Leader: Sorry, but security's expensive

By now, we all know what a big concern security is for computer users, right? Hardly a day goes by without seeing headlines about the latest worms, viruses, Trojan horses, and hack attacks slowing the flow of email on the internet or bringing down websites.

The potential losses are greatest for corporations, which need their systems to be up and running in order to carry out business, and for whom the loss of data can be extremely costly.

It would follow that said corporations would be particularly judicious about protecting their data.

After all, the problem's not going away. Hackers continue to compromise business systems. As we've written about this week, 68 per cent of UK companies have been the victim of a malicious security incident over the past year. If you include only large businesses, that number rises to 90 per cent.

However, while you'd think security would be a top priority in firms' spending budgets - judging by the amount of lip service paid to the topic - that doesn't seem to be the case.

A recent report from IDC shows that in 2003, companies spent an average of $43bn on security, about the same amount as on printers and other peripherals.

Nothing against printers, but what good are they if your PC's been frozen up by a virus or your network's down and out?

With security threats becoming more and more complex, businesses must accept that they're going to have to spend more in order to fight them.

Now not all spending is equal. Throwing money at out-of-date or ineffective solutions will only make matters worse. A good deal of education on the part of buyers and simplification of technology on the part of developers is essential.

But in the end, secure corporate networks could do a lot of good. For example, if businesses become more effective at thwarting worms and viruses, they could stop them from spreading to other businesses and home users - and minimise the total damage hackers and malicious users are able to cause on the net. Isn't that worth something?