How bad a problem is spy/ad/malware really?

[dibbkd]

I work in the IT department of a very large worldwide chemical company. We currently have use no tools to detect, clean, and prevent spy/ad/malware and I've been trying to convince the corporate IT folks that this is an important issue that needs to be addressed.

They told me that worrying about spyware and such was in their two-year roadmap.

What facts and figures can I show them to get them more motivated? i.e., how many spy/ad/malware problems are out there? Has a company been subject to this problem that caused them financial damage?

Trust me, I know it's a problem and can show them how many things Ad-aware and Spybot find, but it's just no big deal to them.

Please help!

 

[pechenegs]

Well, just tell them if they don't do anything their computers will end up running so slow the'd be as well as throwing them out, cos once the adware, spyware and other junk starts piling up and phoning home, your computers will end up being overwhelmed. Plus, your computers will end up being used in a denial of server attacks once probed and hacked, meaning you could end up neing prosecuted by FBI etc for allowing your computers to be hijacked and compromised. Spyware like BDE, bundled with Kazaa will use your computer and it's resources as part of their network, using your computer to transfer files, which you don't know anything about it. In fact, you could end up hosting Mafia porn sites, Terrorists etc, I know I'm being a bit extreme here, but let them get the message, your bosses don't want the FBI or MI5 coming to visit them now do we?

pech

 

[jrbarnett]

dibbkd

I don't know of any specific cases of spyware causing financial damage to any company, but it could cost in the following ways:
* Increased bandwidth requirement
* Slowing down computers, as Pechenegs says, resulting in them being replaced unnecessarily, or extra resources being required to troubleshoot/solve browser problems by support staff.
Additionally:
* There is the low possibility of confidential data being leaked onto the internet, causing damage to company reputation (this cannot be quantified in terms of any currency). Imagine what would happen if direct competitors got hold of some of this information, or confidential client data got leaked out?

I used to work in a small company doing programming and support/system admin work.
One of the computers got infected by the Pretty park virus (it was a few years ago) and we only picked it up by looking at the proxy server error logs and seeing unusual activity, not due to problems with that PC.
Although it was easily cleaned up (about 15 minutes including research), it demonstrates that you could possibly pick up infected PC's by looking at proxy server logs.

John

 

[jrbarnett]

You might also want to look at these articles:

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/internet/security/0,39020375,39118226,00.htm

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/internet/0,39020369,2130245,00.htm

http://www.computerweekly.com/Article126488.htm

John