UK small businesses are too complacent over the threat of sophisticated viruses, despite the financial losses caused by such attacks.

So says ServGate Technologies, a US network security firm, which found that a third of companies took no action at all after a "blended" attack - a network assault which seeks to maximise damage by combining methods, such as viruses and worms. Blended attacks cause their victims an average of 11 hours computer downtime, according to ServGate.

Blended attacks cost 44 per cent of companies surveyed more than £1,000, with seven per cent claiming the attacks cost as much as £10,000. Some 23 per cent didn’t know if they had been hit by a blended attack, while just under half admitted they didn’t know how to deal with an attack.

Atchison Frazer, ServGate's marketing veep, said that businesses need to wake up to danger posed by blended attacks: "With an estimated 3.8 million businesses in the UK, a severe blended attack would be disastrous for the UK economy. With increasing sophistication of attacks combining viruses, worms and malicious codes, companies lack knowledge in how best to combat this."

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