Globe and Mail Update Published on Friday, Mar. 31, 2006 12:23PM EST Last updated on Sunday, Apr. 05, 2009 2:34AM EDT
Security experts at Sophos say that while the list of the top-10 malware threats were dominated by long-established viruses, a Trojan horse called Clagger-I dominates the list for the second straight month and demonstrates that cyber criminals are continually developing new attacks and mass spamming campaigns to generate illegitimate income.
Sophos also said that 0.9 per cent — one in 108 e-mail messages — is viral.
The top 10 malware in March 2006 were:
1. Zafi-B 17.3 per cent
2. Netsky-P 15.3 per cent
3. Nyxem-D 7.9 per cent
4. MyDoom-AJ 4.1 per cent Re-entry
5. Mytob-EX 3.6 per cent
6. Clagger-I 3.4 per cent New entry
7. Mytob-BE 3.1 per cent
8. Netsky-D 3.0 per cent
8. Mytob-FO 3.0 per cent
10. Mytob-Z 2.8 per cent Re-entry
Others 36.5 per cent
Clagger-I uses zombie networks or botnets to spam carrier messages disguised as e-mail from PayPal. The Trojan was aggressively seeded around the world in the beginning of March in an attempt to infect the masses as quickly as possible.
Two others — MyDoom-AJ in fourth position and Mytob-Z at tenth — were both originally detected in April, 2005. Nyxem-D, the Kama Sutra worm, which uses a variety of pornographic disguises in an attempt to spread and disable security software, is at number three. Despite the widespread publicity this worm has received since it was first detected in January, it continues to plague and fool users. Old-timers Netsky-P and Zafi-B topped the list in March.
Join the Discussion: