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01 Aug 2000

Top ten viruses reported to Sophos Anti-Virus in July 2000

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

Position Last
month
Malware Percentage of reports
12VBS/Stages-A
   7.9%
21VBS/Kakworm
   5.7%
3=3VBS/LoveLet-G
   5.0%
3=7WM97/Marker-O
   5.0%
5=NewWM97/FF-F
   4.3%
5=NewWM97/Panther-B
   4.3%
7NewXM97/Yawn-A
   3.6%
8=NewOF97/Jerk-I
   2.9%
8=Re-entryWM97/Ethan
   2.9%
8=6WM97/Marker-C
   2.9%
Others55.5%

"Script viruses dominate the list of most commonly reported malware, indicating that companies should consider disabling Windows Scripting Host and blocking VBS files at the email gateway," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for Sophos Anti-Virus. "Top of the pops is the Life Stages worm written by Zulu, a prolific virus writer from Argentina."

For details of how to disable Windows Scripting Host click here.

For more information on Stages-A click 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.