For August 2002, the chart is as follows, with the most
frequently occurring virus at number one:
"Only two viruses in August's top ten are brand new entries.
Instead, the chart is full of old stalwarts such as Klez-H, Badtrans-B, Sircam and Nimda," said Graham
Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos Anti-Virus. "Klez-H
and its nasty bedfellow ElKern-C, have accounted
for almost a quarter of enquiries to Sophos's support centre this
month, even though protection has been available since February.
Users getting caught out by them appear not to have updated their
anti-virus software in six months. With hundreds of new viruses
appearing each month, this lax approach is just asking for a
security breach."
The top ten hoaxes reported to Sophos during August 2002 are as
follows:
"Hoaxes continue to cause almost as much confusion as real
viruses. The multi-lingual JDBGMGR hoax, which claimed to
be an extremely dangerous virus, has been perplexing computer users
ever since it first appeared in May," continued Cluley. "Simple to
implement anti-hoax policies can help limit this confusion and will
prevent hoaxes from needlessly clogging up email servers and
wasting valuable bandwidth."
Sophos has made available a free, always-fresh, information feed for intranets and
websites which means users can always find out about the latest
viruses and hottest hoaxes.
Graphics of the virus top ten chart are available here.
More information about safe computing,
including anti-hoax policies.
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.