This means that software firms and security consultancies may once again have a big market for their services.

The corporate world, however, has been faced with a precarious trade-off when it comes to IT security. Damaging corporate viruses such as the Code Red worm, which continues to replicate around the Internet unchecked, have cost industry billions of dollars in lost productivity and software upgrades, experts say.

At the same time, belt-tightening initiatives tighten the corporate budget process, limiting IT investment. IBM, for one, is hoping the fear factor will motivate budget managers not to skimp on security initiatives.

At a press event in London on Thursday, IBM introduced two veteran security specialists -- dubbed "ethical hackers" by the company -- to discuss the fragile state of Internet security and to get its message across that upper management has to be more involved in IT defense.

"Ultimately, security is a management issue," said James Luke, information warfare specialist with IBM Global Services in London.

Another reformed hacker, now employed by IBM as a security expert, said that the incidence rate of viruses was on the upswing -- and from a seemingly benign source.

Novice hackers, called "script kiddies" in Internet parlance, "can be the most dangerous," he said. They are among the largest population of hackers, he added. Often, they are teenagers who get their kicks out of defacing or blocking access to sites by employing virus programs downloaded from the Internet.

"They know just enough to be dangerous," he said.

One famous "script kiddie" hacker was the 20-year-old Dutch man who earlier this year admitted to engineering the Anna Kournikova e-mail virus. The hoax e-mail carried an attachment that appeared to be a picture of the tennis star. Once opened, it spread around the world slowing down e-mail systems and shutting down some corporate servers.

Other virus authors, including the mastermind behind the recurring Code Red worm, go undetected. Last month, Computer Economics of Carlsbad, California, reported that the Code Red worm, which targets unfortified computer servers, did $2.6 billion in damage.

Blueyonder, a British broadband provider from Telewest Communications, continues to carry a warning on its site that the Code Red worm is affecting service performance for some of its customers.