Sophos has identified the top 10 viruses and hoaxes found in Dec 2005. The W32/Sober-Z was on top of the virus list and “˜The Hotmail Hoax’ was on top of the hoax list.


Sophos has identified the top 10 viruses found in Dec 2005.

The W32/Sober-Z was on top of the list, followed by Zafi-B and Netsky-P. Other viruses in the list were Mytob-EX, Mytob-FO, Mytob-BE, Zafi-D, Mytob-GH, Mytob-C and Mytob-FM.

The Sober-Z virus comprised 78.92% of all malware reported to Sophos. Zafi-B comprised 3.3% and Netsky-P comprised 2.3% of malware reported to Sophos.

The Sober-Z virus sends itself as an email attatchment. Once the user opens the email, it tries to deactivate security software installed on the user’s computer and creates a backdoor on the computer for other malware.

Carole Theriault, senior security consultant at Sophos, said, “The Sober-Z worm stormed to the top of the November 2005 chart and continued to hold the number one spot throughout December. Should the author go ahead and upload malware onto websites for infected machines to grab and run, as anticipated, the worm may disrupt businesses even further.” [Source]

The report also says that in December, 6.1% or one in 16 emails was viral.

Sophos has also identified the top 10 hoaxes found in Dec 2005. “˜The Hotmail Hoax’ was on top of the list which comprised 20.4% of hoaxes reported to Sophos. “˜A virtual card for you’ followed in the list with 10.1%.

To view the press release of the report, click here.

 

 

 

 

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