Whither the worm?

From Kristie Lu Stout
CNN Tech Correspondent

(CNN) -- The war against PC worms and viruses seems to have lost its thunder.

Following last year's "Code Red" attack, anti-virus experts tallied billions of dollars of damage, and software firms warned that the attacks would continue and even spread to cell phones and PDAs.

However, with the exception of an e-mail worm called "Klez," there has been limited PC panic.

Researchers say the computer virus infection rate is starting to fall.

"The hard numbers are not available for a few months. But my feeling is that the total number is down a bit more than normal," says New Zealand based Nick Fitzgerald, an anti-virus researcher and independent contractor for Computer Associates.

"My gut feeling is this has actually been slowing down the last few months."

Significant drop

According to research by Network Associates, there has been a significant drop in the number of new viruses.

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Since 1990, the number of new viruses has grown by approximately 50 percent each year. This year, that rate is expected to fall to about five percent.

There is no single explanation for the downward trend, but theories range from the introduction of harsher anti-hacker laws to wider use of anti-virus software.

"We're seeing now that anti-virus in the consumer market is becoming like the operating system. Basically, everyone is buying a copy of anti-virus for their computer just as in corporations," says Gary Sexton, Vice President of Symantec.

"Something like 99 percent of corporations around the world also have it. So the basic mass-mailing virus, I think you'll see a reduction in the outbreak but not necessarily in individual infections."

Risk remains

The outbreak may be slowing down, but the risk remains.

Researchers say up to 7 percent of all e-mail messages hold a virus.

"Providing that people do deploy and keep up to date their technology that restrains and restricts the ability of the virus to spread," says Sexton.

But after the current calm, could the next wave of worms have a bigger bite than before?

"It's always a possibility," says Fitzgerald. "The industry is an arms race. Someone will think of a clever way to work around the protections."