Forty percent of companies report disruptions due to malware

Webroot announced the findings of the survey, along with other observations and research findings in its State of Internet Security report. It found that along with business disruptions, many businesses are spending more on help desk functions as a result of malware infections.

In one case study laid out in the report, Webroot found that a company with 14,000 workstations lost US$108,000 due to malware infections.

According to the Webroot study, 39 percent of companies reported Trojan horse attacks, 24 percent reported system monitor attacks and 20 percent reported pharming and keylogger attacks.

In addition, 26 percent of businesses reported that confidential information was compromised as a result of spyware.

In spite of this, Webroot executives said that businesses still aren’t treating the threats seriously enough.

"Despite the growth and severity of malware, over 60 percent of businesses don't have a security plan. Businesses need to control this threat by adequately protecting themselves and their customers," said Peter Watkins, CEO of Webroot.

Even as businesses fail to advance their security strategies, hackers are moving forward with their attacks. Watkins said that the state-of-the-art methods of infection of 2006 are now par for the course.

Increasingly, many of these methods use the Web as an attack vector, Webroot reported. Company researchers found that 1.7 percent of 250 million URLs worldwide contain malware. While this may not seem like a high percentage, that is still 4.2 million sites. And Webroot reported that it found 3 million of those in 2006 alone.