How significant is the malware problem?
Today, about two-thirds of all PCs are believed to have some form of malware infection. The Geek Squad reports that 78 percent of their consumer revenue is from cleaning up such malware on their customers’ PCs. According to the Yankee Group, roughly 220,000 cumulative unique variants of malware are out there, representing a tenfold increase over 2002 numbers. At the same time, detection rates against new variants are less than 70 percent, and anti-virus labs are 30-60 days behind in trying to keep pace with the appearance of new mutations. Data from Forrester Research shows that 17 percent of businesses said their systems have suffered from spyware this year, and the firm expects that number to climb to 25 percent within the next 12 months. NetworkWorld says that almost 40 percent of enterprise IT trouble tickets are spyware-related.
