SYDNEY - While macro viruses still dominate the international IT
battlefield, Sophos has reported the resurfacing of an "ancient"
boot sector virus, called Form, into its Top ten reported viruses around the
world.
Sophos, one of the world's leading developers of anti-virus
software for networks, says Form has been around for almost ten
years... it used to top the charts regularly until the Microsoft
Office viruses appeared.
"Form has maintained a constant presence - and threat - just
outside the Top ten ever since," according to Richard Baldry,
Director of Sophos Australia. "Boot sector viruses, which infect
floppy disks, continue to pose a problem, and computer users should
be careful not to focus purely on the macro virus problem."
Macro viruses - such as Melissa, Ethan, Story and Crown-B - are
still the main feature of Sophos's Top ten, highlighting them as
the most prevalent danger for PC users around the world. However,
because people rarely tend to throw floppy disks out, boot sector
viruses are very difficult to eradicate completely. Disks that
haven't been used for years can remain infected, and a PC can be
reinfected when an infected floppy is left in the computer and the
computer booted.
Boot sector viruses can be easily avoided by disabling floppy
disk booting. "You can eliminate 100% of pure boot sector viruses
for free simply by changing the CMOS boot settings to disable
floppy booting." says Sean Richmond, Senior Support Engineer at
Sophos. "This facility is available in the system boot-time menu on
most modern PCs."
Sophos has been a world leader in teaching systems
administrators and users how to deal with the threat of computer
viruses. Its acclaimed Anti-Virus Workshops, in which students are
given hands-on experience of the tools and techniques to deal with
a virus attack will be launched in Australia before the end of the
year.
More than 100 million users in 150 countries rely on Sophos as the best protection against complex threats and data loss. Sophos is committed to providing security and data protection solutions that are simple to manage, deploy and use and that deliver the industry's lowest total cost of ownership. Sophos offers award-winning encryption, endpoint security, web, email, and network access control solutions backed by SophosLabs - a global network of threat intelligence centers. With more than two decades of experience, Sophos is regarded as a leader in security and data protection by top analyst firms and has received many industry awards.
Sophos is headquartered in Boston, US and Oxford, UK. More information is available at www.sophos.com.