Nothing like a jolt of reality to go with a system administrator's morning café mocha, is there? It might be a good time to switch to decaf and double check the patch management and antivirus signatures around the old enterprise today.

According to Symantec's Internet Threat Security Report, what was out there in late 2004 posing a threat to PCs worldwide has grown in number. Educational institutions were the most frequent targets of attacks, and small businesses and financial services were next.

Bigger businesses have been more rigorous in keeping up to date with software patches, and ensuring antivirus software engines and signature files are current. Those firms generally have dedicated staff to do this, something small businesses frequently lack. That could be why criminals have shifted their attention away from some of the larger targets.

Bot-controlled computers have increased in number, with Symantec observing 10,352 new ones per day for the first six months of 2005, on average. The period of time between vulnerabilities being identified and exploits for them being created dropped to an average of six days.

Windows was a favorite target of virus and worm writers, like those who created the Zotob worm. Zotob was reported in the wild five days after Microsoft disclosed a vulnerability in its plug and play utility. For the first six months, there were 10,866 worms and viruses in existence to plagued Windows platforms.