Just in case you thought we were making all this virus stuff up, here are some interesting new statistics from MailWatch, “a leading Spam-blocking, virus-scanning and content-filtering service protecting corporate networks worldwide”, which said they intercepted 24 times as many viruses in August than they did in July. This, needless to say, is something of a record for them. Needless to say, too, of those 7,132,102 viruses, 95% were the SoBig.F variant, the one that has been doing all the damage. Given that it was only discovered on August 18, that’s some damage in less than two weeks.Of course, all these press releases I received about all these viruses contain a fair amount of companies touting their wares. It doesn’t mean the information is inaccurate, just that one shouldn’t always take their prescriptions for the pain too literally. This one from MailWatch, for example, quotes Bill Fallon, Vice President of Product Marketing at EasyLink Services Corporation, the company that offers and operates MailWatch, as saying, “It’s clear that dealing with attacks of this sort as well as the daily onslaught of Spam are now a part of the cost of being an Internet-connected business today. MailWatch helps businesses of all sizes dramatically reduce this cost.” Sometimes I wish they wouldn’t try so hard with their pitches. Not least because it’s MailWatch that has the annoying habit of sending people emails informing them (usually incorrectly) that they’re infected.