The only consistency found in estimates of the financial damage caused by Internet attacks is that they are big―Sobig. Collectively, worms and viruses such as Bagle, Netsky and MyDoom have cost the worldwide economy more than $100 billion in cleanup, equipment and software replacement, and lost productivity. MyDoom alone did $22.6 billion in damage last year, according to London-based security and digital risk management firm mi2g. In its first 24 hours of existence, the Blaster virus racked up approximately $525 million in inoculation costs. The numbers are staggering, but they're not what motivated a group of ISPs to band together with Microsoft, as they did in February, to form the Global Infrastructure Alliance for Internet Safety. After all, spread out over the globe and divvied up by the enterprise and consumer communities at large, even pain this acute can be absorbed without much collective outcry.
展开▼
