McAfee has announced new data outlining how implementing network-based Intrusion Prevention Solutions (IPS) can drastically reduce the costs associated with security downtime. The report entitled, "Reducing Downtime Costs with Network-Based IPS" looks at revenue and employee productivity losses due to DoS (Denial of Service) attacks and malware affecting clients, servers, and the network.

The report found that total security downtime costs for large organisations surpasses $30M and up to 2.2% of annual revenue. For small organizations, the cost was just over $30K (0.4% of revenue), with medium organisations topping $225K (0.5% of revenue).

The report data also showed that organisations that have not yet deployed network-based IPS will witness the following gains when moving to implement network-wide network based IPS:

• DOS attacks: 65% reduction in downtime hours
• Server malware: 50% reduction in downtime hours
• Client malware: 40% reduction in downtime hours

Network-based IPS appliances enable enterprises, service providers, and small-medium businesses to reduce business risk by protecting clients, servers, and network infrastructure from attacks of all types, including DoS/DDoS attacks, malware, worms, Trojans, and application specific threats. They are in-line devices, meaning that traffic is flowing through them in real-time. This allows the IPS device to block attacks before they reach their intended targets, while ensuring mission-critical applications are protected and performing without interruption.