What's The Actual Cost of A Virus?

[bigc73542]

Link to story: http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/01/29/0157213

-{ Quote: "What's The Actual Cost of A Virus?

Posted by simoniker on Thu Jan 29, '04 04:36 AM
from the return-to-sender dept.

ThosLives writes "CNN Money just posted a story that says the MyDoom virus may cost businesses $250M. My favorite quote is that for small to medium businesses with 400 or less employees...

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[beetlejuice]

Man, you've just stumbled on the easiest job in the world. Imagine $48,000-$58,000 to do this--- :o

the only really secure computer is unpluged!

[bigc73542]

I want to know where to put in my application. I really want that job. ;D

[HandsOff]

well, i may just send you an application if you can riddle me this, Batman:

I have heard that a virus can destroy a hard drive?!? How exactly can they do that? Or do they just mean all the data is lost? Is it fact or fiction, I'd really like to know.

And STOP LAUGHING!!!

-HandsOff

P.S. - My 120 GB drive just failed it's integrety test...

[bigc73542]

I have also read that certain viruses can destroy the io paths in the hdd which in affect destroys the drive. :(

[bigc73542]

I have had a few hdd's come in to my shop that wern't very old but the viruses that are known to cause the problem were found to be on the system but I couldn't prove that is what caused the failure. seeing as how the drive was dead and no data could be extracted. It would be like flashing your bios with the wrong version. The bios is still there but it just wont work. same with the small board in a hdd case but in the case of the hdd you can't reflash the right version back in it is just dead. :(

[HandsOff]

The worst is...sort of seems to work again, tempting me to trust it...I did a low level reformat, but it still failed the test. Because i have a hard time letting go, i put it back in as a slave...Miracles happen, right?

Are you really a flasher? God, how i could use you now! I have a laptop without a password. i am going to read up on the subject, but so far I am getting that as a practical matter, it will never work again. Phoenix CMOS ... i even feel bad knowing I am about to destroy it. Such a waste.

[bigc73542]

Don't give up there ways to retrive a password. :)

[HandsOff]

Yes, there is a way...

as "Little Feat" say in one of their songs,

"I gets tough to keep getting back up after being knocked down."


(maybe that's why i'm still looking up at the ceiling)


thanks for the encouragement, anyway, but really, think how dangerous i might be if they added a little knowledge to the mix?

[bigc73542]

You never know it might make it more interesting ;)

[HandsOff]

...I was thinking about "the true cost of a virus" and it occurred to me to be the same logic used by our fire departments. The policy is this, if they respond to more than one fire alarm from your address, then the charge you for the "actual cost of the fire department response."

You know, i think if it were ME i might consider challenging this "actual cost" which i am sure is based on a formula of how many men spent how much time, and so on.

well obviously, the city did not receive the fire alarm,and then go out and hire a handful of men that would be used only for this venture. I am more than sure that it was the regulary scheduled shift that they would have had to pay for whether ther was a response or not...

...and so i see your point. big companies have IS people and Network Guys and system administrators and a virus comes along? How much does it cost? ZERO!

(in fact, it benefits the company, as it keeps the technical staff skills finely honed!)

[LowWaterMark]

-{ Quote: " quoting: HandsOff link=board=27;threadid=20911;start=0#msg126707 date=1075690865]
(in fact, it benefits the company, as it keeps the technical staff skills finely honed!)
" }-

Okay, I was with you up until that last statement. ;) No, company's are not benefiting because of these malware attacks. Those people had other assignments (tasks laid out for the week) when some malware hits. While I agree that the costs associated are probably exaggerated, I don't agree that there is a benefit. :P

[bigc73542]

When they possibly have to shut down their network until they are patched or have gotten the updates for the particular incident the cost's could climb pretty high but I agree the figures are probably exagerated just a little. ;)

[HandsOff]

The point is, if you have a security policy in place then people in the normal course of events are going to cover it. On a smaller scale, lets say i spent 40 dollars for a year of anti-virus subscriptions, and it had guarded against 4 viruses. Would I be correct to say each virus, A, B, C, and D cost me 10 dollars apeice? If a fith comes along have i now suffered more expense? Its notable that comanies like Symantec, Panda, and Mcafee all have online virus scanners and serve requests of thousands of customers per day. Did they ever shut down because of a virus? They just followed their policy and it was business as usual. How can you predict the cost of something that hasnt happened yet? How can you know what it would take to shut down a network? What you can do is try to justify they expense of, and the degree of maintanence and security that management chooses to impement. And to imply that IS has better things to do than implement secure protocols? I think they better plan to work it into their schedules because that is what a large part of their budget is supposed to be paying for.

[HandsOff]

I guess i was not very convincing as the devil's advocate, whoops, i mean management's advocate. you two sounded so horrified that i couldn't resist. I always tend to scoff at doomsdayers not because i dont think there is a threat, but because i dont see any substance in their predictions.

Sure companies and indivduals are going to take some hits...we already knew this. The really sad part though is that who ever paints the worst picture will end up looking like a prophet if something really bad does happen. Joe Bleek saw this coming, if only we had listened...