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 March 2002, the chart is as follows, with the most
frequently occurring virus at number one:
"Despite the appearance of new viruses like Bound and Caricature, it's Klez and Badtrans that have
snatched the top slots this month," said Graham Cluley, senior
technology consultant at Sophos Anti-Virus. "This demonstrates that
it isn't just the newer viruses with higher profiles that users
should be looking out for. Just because a virus isn't hitting the
headlines doesn't mean it isn't continuing to cause problems."
The Caricature (W32/Caric-A) and Bound (W32/FBound-C) email
worms, both of which emerged during March, attempt to play further
confidence tricks on computer users. Caricature poses as a
screensaver of Bill Clinton and Bound masquerades as a security
patch. Once again, both of these worms can be protected against
with anti-virus software and safe computing practices.
510 new viruses were discovered and protected against by Sophos
Anti-Virus during March 2002.
The total number of viruses Sophos now detects and protects
against is 73,079.
More information
about Klez.
More information
on Badtrans.
More information
about safe computing.
Graphics of the above Top Ten chart 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.
Sophos is headquartered in Boston, US and Oxford, UK. More information is available at www.sophos.com.