UK businesses are paying out for ineffectual anti-virus software that can't cope with the virus threats around today (including mass-mailers like BugBear).
As a result, they're suffering from the consequences of their own actions.

Research carried out by the American-based Hurwitz Group on behalf of MessageLabs suggests that, although 95% of companies are using anti-virus software, e-mail viruses are still infecting some 10% of user systems.

According to the research, that's costing smaller businesses an average of £26,000 (assuming that servers are down for ten hours), over £350 in Help Desk calls, £1,753 in user downtime and nearly £1,000 a time to clean up the system itself.

For the medium and larger size companies, total costs per 'invasion' can equate to as much as £560,000. Not an insubstantial sum even for wealthier organisations.