Spyware on corporate computers causes serious network downtime at more than one-quarter of small and mid-sized businesses, with each incident costing an average of 2.5 days to resolve. A computer-technology association counsels CIOs to look at spyware as a serious business issue rather than a technology issue, and make safe-computing education a C-level initiative.
The Computing Technology Industry Association says more than 25 percent of end users reported their productivity was affected by a spyware infection (everything from pop-up windows to major data-breach threats) in the last six months, and more than a third of those users had been infected multiple times. Some of them were infected 10 times or more in that period.
"What was surprising and troubling is how much trouble a single incident of spyware can cause a company," says Stephen Ostrowski, director of communications for CompTIA. "We found it takes 2.5 days, or 20 hours, from the time of the spyware infection to the time the computer is scrubbed and clean and running efficiently again." The report estimates the cost of spyware infections for SMBs at more than $8,000 a year, not counting lost revenue.
Source: NewsFactor Network, http://www.newsfactor.com