Middle East Businesses Cite Virus Attacks As Most Significant Threat Driving Disaster Recovery Plans

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates – November 10, 2004 – The Middle East operations of VERITAS Software Corporation (Nasdaq: VRTS), today released the results of the company's third annual worldwide Disaster Recovery survey study, revealing that virus attacks are the most major threat promoting the creation of disaster recovery strategies. While company concerns about unplanned IT downtime have fallen sharply, regional businesses cite virus attacks, fear of natural disasters and potential terrorist threats, and the benefits of changing technologies as the major reasons for investing in disaster recovery planning and solutions, and reviewing them routinely.

The research, conducted on behalf of VERITAS by Dynamic Markets, highlights the growing awareness among Middle East businesses about the need for data protection and recovery. According to survey results, regional businesses actually review their disaster recovery plans more frequently, with 29 % reviewing strategies monthly, than counterparts in the UK (17 % reviewing monthly) and the US (15 % reviewing monthly.) Further demonstrating that the region's data protection market continues to grow at a healthy pace, more than half of Middle East-based companies surveyed said that their management believes that the company would benefit from additional disaster recovery investment, compared to markets like France and the US, in which only about a quarter of managers planned additional investment in disaster recovery solutions.

Unplanned Downtime and How DR Plans Help Alleviate Fears

The new research indicates that unplanned system downtime appears to be on the decline in the region, with just 29 % of Middle East-based participants reporting unplanned outages in the last year, compared to 82 % of companies surveyed for the 2003 report.

Disaster recovery strategies are also delivering significant peace of mind – 94 % of regional IT managers said that without a DR plan in place, they would feel exposed to threats or disasters:

· 81% of companies said they would feel exposed to computer failure.
· 75 and 67% would feel exposed to external threats like viruses/hackers and natural disasters like fires or flooding respectively
· 69% would fear man-made disasters, such as terrorist attacks
· 63% would feel exposed to internal computer threats such as accidental and malicious employee behavior.

Regulatory Compliance and Business Oversight

With an increasing number of industries such as financial services in line for regulations that would dictate how long specific data is stored, half of Middle East-based respondents (50 %) said that potential compliance issues had influenced their disaster recovery strategies. Chief decision-makers around the region have also become more involved in the disaster recovery process, with almost a third (31 %) of respondents noting that their corporate board of directors reviews and signs off annually on the DR strategy, compared to just 16 % in the UK and 18 % in Switzerland.

Consistent Review Ensuring Ability to Recover Data

The regional analysis also revealed that Middle East-based companies investing in disaster recovery strategies are protecting those investments through regular verification. More than two-thirds verify that the backup of their corporate information is being performed properly on at least a weekly basis, with 37 % of regional respondents noting that their organizations certify correct backups on a daily basis.

While just over a third of participants (33 %) confirm that they have never had to execute their disaster recovery strategy either partly or in full, more than half of regional companies surveyed (56 %) revealed that computer system failure (hardware, software, or networking) had required them to roll out elements of their disaster recovery plan.

Half of companies questioned said that their security systems would be the first things restored following a potential disaster, with 48 % giving priority to restoring financial and accounting data.

Some Still Dangerously Behind the Times
Despite these changing trends, almost a quarter of the Middle East's largest companies questioned still do not have a DR strategy in place. Of these companies:

· An overwhelming majority (63 %) simply say they have just not managed to get around to it yet
· A quarter (25 %) say they are in the process of establishing a DR plan.

Another cause for concern is where participants that actually have established disaster recovery plans are maintaining those plans. Almost two-thirds of regional companies surveyed said that their DR plan is stored at the organization's main data center, meaning that any physical disaster such as a fire, flood, or even traffic delays could keep the plan from being implemented should an outage occur. Only about a third of Middle East-based respondents maintain their DR plans in another secure building or third party site.

In Summary

"This research has revealed some highly encouraging trends, including frequent review and testing of disaster recovery strategies, and the willingness for the region's largest organizations to continue to invest in information protection and management solutions as business needs dictate. The decline in overall system downtime is a significant achievement for Middle East businesses as they become more competitive regionally and globally,' said Sam Tayan, regional manager, VERITAS Middle East.

"Given the vast range of threats to business continuity identified by participants, from system failure to viruses to accidental data deletion by colleagues, it's critical that the 21 % of larger companies without DR plans institute some strategy for protecting their critical information as quickly as possible. Disaster recovery planning is a vital corporate directive for companies of every size, who may be risking market share and hundreds of thousands of dollars in business if their customer and corporate information is compromised,' Tayan added.

An executive summary of the research report can be accessed by visiting:
http://eval.veritas.com/mktginfo/products/White_Papers/High_Availability/dynamic_markets_executive_summary.pdf

Photo Caption: (from left to right) Satish Shenoy, technical manager, VERITAS Middle East and Sam Tayan, regional manager, VERITAS Middle East

Survey Details
Dynamic Markets conducted this research on behalf of VERITAS Software. The respondents were from medium to large-scale organizations employing 500 plus staff members. The cross-industry sample covered 1,259 IT managers who have responsibility for, and are involved in, the management of their company's Disaster Recovery Plan. The research was conducted in the following countries/regions: US (102), UK (101), France (101), Germany (100), Australia (50), Benelux (57), China (51), India (50), Italy (54), Japan (52), Poland (50), Middle East (52), South Africa (50), Spain (50), Sweden (54) and Switzerland (50).


About VERITAS Software
VERITAS Software, one of the 10 largest software companies in the world, is a leading provider of software to enable utility computing. In a utility computing model, IT resources are aligned with business needs, and business applications are delivered with optimal performance and availability on top of shared computing infrastructure, minimizing hardware and labor costs. With 2003 revenues of $1.75 billion, VERITAS delivers products for data protection, storage & server management, high availability and application performance management that are used by 99 percent of the Fortune 500. More information about VERITAS Software can be found at www.veritas.com.

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