Feb 19, 2004 : February Sees Record Virus Damages

📅 February 19, 2004 - With more than a week remaining, February 2004 was the worst month ever for malware proliferation, breaking the record set last month, according to mi2g Intelligence Unit (mi2g.net), a digital risk firm.

The organization expects economic damage caused by malware this month will be between $43.8 billion and $53.6 billion worldwide. The unprecedented damage is the result of the MyDoom virus and its variants in addition to the Mimail, Dumaru, Sobig, Swen, Klez, Sober, Yaha, BugBear and Fizzer viruses, as well as the new variant of the Bagle virus that began circulating earlier this week.
The Bagle virus spreads via email and contains an executable file that if run, allows hackers to gain access to infected computers through a backdoor. The virus has a built in termination date set for February 25, 2004.
Mi2g said that as of this morning, the Bagle virus has now caused between 543.4 and 664.1 million dollars of economic damage, moving it into mi2g's top 20 list of most economically damaging viruses ever. The MyDoom virus sits at the top of the list.
According to mi2g, economic damage is a measure calculated in terms of loss of business, bandwidth clogging, productivity erosion, management time reallocation and cost of recovery.