The largest risk my company faces for downtime and lost revenue comes from virus infections. Viruses used to be a nagging little problem that affected only those who trafficked in copyright- infringing software on floppies. Then Microsoft decided that documents should also be virtual machines that run macros, and the virus world became a lot more exciting. Just when we got our heads around that, Microsoft decided that e-mail clients should also be able to run scripts and that our address books should be open to all software.

There are thousands of viruses, each of them trying to spread, and many of them leaving damaged data and public relations woes in their wake.

We run the best antivirus defenses money can buy. We update our software every time the vendors release new patches. We spend a great deal of effort on the problem, and yet we still suffer occasional virus infections. Why?

Chinks in the Armor

First of all, we must continue to do business. Our development teams need to share code. Our sales teams have to send documents and presentations, our finance teams have to share spreadsheets and databases. These days, all these files can contain viruses.

I remember recruiting new staff to address virus issues and interviewing a string of ex-military and intelligence types. Short haircut after short haircut explained to me that the way to eradicate the virus threat was simply to remove all floppy drives and CD-ROMs from all machines, disable Internet access

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