Ireland is now ranked the third most vulnerable country in the world in terms of computer viruses and worm attacks, a new survey published today shows.

Only Canada and Kuwait are ranked above the Republic in terms of the number of virus attacks launched from their systems in proportion to the number of internet users in each State.

The report, which was prepared by internet security firm Symantec found that 6,397 attacks per 100,000 internet users were launched from Irish computer systems in the last six months of 2003.

This compares to 8,285 attacks per 100,000 internet users from Canada and 6,957 virus attacks from Kuwait.

The high rate of virus attacks launched from Irish computer systems reflects a huge increase in the number of systems currently running in the Republic.

It does not mean that hackers or virus creators are based in the Republic, rather that international hackers are infecting Irish systems, which then propagate these same viruses or computer worm across the entire internet.

The US was ranked the fourth highest virus originating country with 5,966 attacks per 100,000 users.

But due to its huge internet population, in overall terms the US accounted for 58 per cent of all global attacks in the period.

Mr Graeme Pinkney, manager of Symantec's analysis operations, said one of the main reasons for the Republic's high ranking was the huge number of call centre and other businesses now operating here.

He said the increasing roll-out of broadband technology to consumers was also a factor that was causing an increase in the number of infected computers.

The huge infection rate in the Republic does not imply that Irish businesses are particularly lax in terms of their internet security policies.

Mr Pinkney said the problem was that exploits in software were being discovered at such a rapid rate that there was little time for firms to patch systems.

The report shows that the impact of three worms in August and September over a 12-day period.

The Blaster, Welchia and Sobig.F worms cost global businesses $2 billion (€1.64 billion) in damages.

Symantec found that half the firms surveyed reported a breach in their security systems in the second half of 2003.

Financial services, healthcare and energy sectors were the hardest hit.

Threats to privacy and confidentiality were the fastest growing threats during the latter part of 2003, representing a 519 per cent growth in the volume of submissions made by firms.