Financial Costs

Estimating the financial costs incurred by Stanford due to computer security related issues is hardly an easy task to do. Even if we only consider the damage done by the MS Blaster and Gaobot worms, the numbers are hardly accurate, as easily demonstrated by the fact that estimates by the ACM (Association for Computing Machinery) for the financial costs incurred by the MS Blaster worm to the United States ranged from 50 million dollars to a staggering billions of dollars.

Nonetheless, the economic damage is very real...

  • data loss from reformating hard disk after virus attack
  • time spent by Residential Computer Consultants, and Stanford's ITSS department tending to affected computer users
  • network congestion due to traffic spike caused by numerous emails sent by affected computers and preventing spread to the rest of the campus network
  • Additional system infrastructure required to filter virus-containing emails, and to conduct periodic checks on all campus computers for infection status
  • productivitiy loss from deleting virus-containing emails, running virus-scan programs, and network downtime by all campus computer users

According to the Information Technology Systems and Services (ITSS) department at Stanford, the MS Blaster worm attacks in Summer 2003 cost an estimated $1.5 million measured in time spent in disinfecting computers. The costs of the more recent Gaobot worm was estimated at under $0.5 million, significantly less than that of the MS Blaster worm as it was less widespread. The above estimates did not account for productivity losses. Fortunately, both worms were non-destructive, and data loss was minimal.