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The results from the 8th annual ICSA Labs Virus Prevalence Survey are in. According to the 2002 survey, viruses have more staying power, there are more infections per month, and damage costs have increased. The good news is that boot sector viruses, which reigned from 1985-1994, have nearly dropped out of sight, most likely due to changes in PC habits that simply don't accommodate them. For example, most newer PCs have CMOS configured to check the CD-ROM first, rather than the floppy drive. This means many boot sector viruses can no longer jump to the local drive when a user inadvertently boots the PC with an infected floppy in the drive. Further, the use of floppy disks is fading as prices of CD-R/W media drop and email provides a far easier method of transferring a file from point A to point B. Of course, it provides an equally ideal method of transferring a virus.

Other good news is that the overall infection rate slowed in 2002, a year that featured no high profile threats of the caliber of, for example, a Nimda, Loveletter, or Melissa virus. This good news is offset by the fact that rates of infection per month were up, showing a rather consistent presence of infection throughout the survey period. Where a sudden malware attack might require temporarily devoting resources to the problem, a persistent rate of infection requires a constant refocus of resources and can, in the long run, prove far more costly. These findings among survey respondents persist despite 96% stating they had 90% of their desktops and 92% of their email servers protected with antivirus software. They also persist despite the fact that the same survey found overall updating of these products had increased in frequency. The survey findings are consistent with antivirus vendor reports as well. Each month, many antivirus vendors release virus prevalency charts of their own. These charts reflect the viruses their company has encountered the most for the reporting month. The Klez virus has dominated these charts since its initial release. In particular, Klez.H remains a steady infector despite the fact that it has been around quite awhile, having been discovered in April 2002.

If more antivirus software is being used, and updating of the software is up, why has the rate of infection per month increased and why do viruses have more "staying power"? The survey succintly sums it up, "Very simply, the use of anti-virus products, while necessary, is not enough."

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