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Tuesday, February 22, 2005
Spyware Has Become Corporate Scourge: Report
Forrester says infection level will reach 25%; 65% of companies plan to invest in new and upgraded anti-spyware tools this year.
Spyware has become a serious security and IT support issue, according to a new report from Forrester Research, and enterprises are increasingly turning to anti-spyware products to help control the scourge.
According to “Antispyware adoption in 2005,” the real level of infection may be difficult to gauge, since 39% of companies surveyed had no idea how many of their systems were affected. However, report author David Friedlander writes that the remaining respondents put the infection level as high as 17%.
Some 80% of companies surveyed have already deployed specialized tools to deal with the problem, though Friedlander notes that, for the most part, they have not done so on a systematic basis.
Not surprisingly, the report finds that McAfee is the anti-spyware software market leader with a 42% share, while Lavasoft’s Ad-Aware software is in a close second at 36%.
Nevertheless, Friedlander predicts that there may yet be room for more players, with half of the companies that have not yet invested in anti-spyware tools planning to purchase them this year, and 65% of companies planning to buy best-of-breed products.