UK enterprises are losing the battle against viruses, with many IT managers blaming poor security on senior managers who fail to provide sufficient investment to meet IT security requirements, a survey has claimed.

Email marketing firm emedia said that the survey showed UK companies "sleep walking" as virus and spam attacks increase.

The study suggested that many companies are not planning to invest significantly in IT security.

The survey of 100 UK IT managers and directors across the technology, finance, construction, education, transport, health and telecoms sectors found that 70 per cent will be spending less than £10,000 on IT security this year.

Over half felt that security was not a top priority for senior management, and only five per cent took the view that cost was the most negative effect on their business from a security incident.

Instead they saw time spent (53 per cent) and disruption (36 per cent) as the biggest negative effects.

One in eight companies polled admitted that they do not update antivirus software frequently enough, leaving one month or more between updates. And five per cent of respondents indicated that their company was currently infected with a virus.

Thirty per cent of senior IT managers surveyed felt that the most important improvement would be to keep antivirus technology up to date.

Other areas highlighted for improvement were staff education (26 per cent) and security skills (20 per cent).

Some 61 per cent of respondents believe that security incidents will get worse in 2005.

David Clark, managing director at emedia, commented: "The battle against viruses continues to rage. Companies can not afford to overlook the effective use of the tools available."