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28 Feb 2001

Top ten viruses reported to Sophos in February 2001

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

For February 2001, the chart is as follows, with the most frequently occurring virus at number one:

"This month's biggest virus - VBS/SST-A, aka the Kournikova worm - was not the work of a genius," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos Anti-Virus. "Yet it still managed to fool hundreds of thousands of people around the world. Come on, wake up everybody! Don't fall for the next virus like this. Use up-to-date anti-virus software, obey the basic rules of safe computing and above all, think before you click."

The author of the Kournikova worm, OnTheFly, later confessed and handed himself over to the Dutch police. Worryingly, the mayor of OnTheFly's home town of Sneek, has suggested the virus writer should be offered a job in the council's IT department on the basis of his exploits.

875 new viruses were discovered and protected against by Sophos during February 2001.

The total number of viruses Sophos detects and protects against is 61026.

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 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.