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 August 2000, the chart is as follows, with the most
frequently occurring virus at number one:
"In a month of hype about Pokemon viruses and Palm trojans it is
interesting to view statistics of the true virus threat.
Email-aware script worms dominate the charts," said Graham Cluley,
head of corporate communications for Sophos Anti-Virus. "Kakworm
continues to be the most commonly encountered virus worldwide. Many
companies have still not bothered to roll-out the patch Microsoft
issued last year to protect against it."
The main issue in the anti-virus industry in August has been the
hyping of viruses for mobile platforms such as WAP and Palmtops.
However, no virus currently exists for these platforms.
VBS/Kakworm exploits security vulnerabilities in Microsoft
Internet Explorer and Microsoft Outlook which mean it is possible
to be infected just by reading an email, rather than by launching
an attached file.
More details on VBS/Kakworm and how to protect against it are
described 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.
Sophos is headquartered in Boston, US and Oxford, UK. More information is available at www.sophos.com.