Press Releases

Browse our press release archive

01 Jun 2000

Top ten viruses reported to Sophos in May 2000

As compiled by Sophos Anti-Virus

This is the latest in a series of monthly charts counting down the ten most frequently occurring viruses as compiled by Sophos, worldwide leaders in anti-virus protection.

For May 2000, the chart is as follows, with the most frequently occurring virus at number one:

Position Last
month
Malware Percentage of reports
1NewVBS/LoveLet
   36.7%
21VBS/Kakworm
   18.8%
32W32/Pretty
   6.4%
47=W32/Ska-Happy99
   3.4%
5Re-entryWM97/Marker-A
   2.3%
63WM97/Marker-O
   1.8%
7Re-entryTroj/Mine
   1.4%
87=WM97/Proverb-A
   1.4%
9Re-entryWM97/Melissa
   1.4%
10NewVBS/Netlog
   1.3%
Others25.1%

"These figures reflect the enormous impact VBS/LoveLet, also known as the LoveBug worm, had on computer systems worldwide," said Graham Cluley, head of corporate communications for Sophos Anti-Virus. "However it can be seen that other viruses also represent a significant risk. Companies should be careful not to lower their guard when viruses disappear from the newspaper headlines."

More details on the VBS/LoveLet virus are available here.

Compiled by Sophos's technical support team, the top ten chart is collated from calls to Sophos's 24 hour, 365 days a year technical support line.

Graphics of the above Top Ten chart are available here.

About Sophos

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 complete security solutions that are simple to deploy, manage, and use and that deliver the industry's lowest total cost of ownership. Sophos offers award-winning encryption, endpoint security, web, email, mobile and network security solutions backed by SophosLabs - a global network of threat intelligence centers.

Sophos is headquartered in Boston, US and Oxford, UK. More information is available at www.sophos.com.