Lynnfield, MA - Sophos, a world leader in corporate anti-virus
solutions, today announced the latest in a series of monthly charts
counting down the ten most frequently occurring viruses and
hoaxes.
For January 2003, the virus chart is as follows, with the most
frequently occurring virus at number one:
The Avril worms, first seen in the wild at the beginning of
January, accounted for almost 30% of support inquiries. They have
taken the top two spots of this month's virus top ten. Other new
entries to make the top ten were the Yaha-K and Sobig worms.
"2002 ended with a few persistent offenders dominating the virus
chart," said Chris Wraight, technology consultant at Sophos, Inc.
"The new year was kicked off with another kind of offender - virus
writer, Simon Vallor, who was recently sentenced to two years in
prison."
"This month also saw the arrival of the Slammer worm -
exploiting a six month old vulnerability. It reinforced the need
for everyone to ensure that their patches are kept up-to-date,"
continued Wraight.
Sophos detected 521 new viruses, worms and Trojan horses in
January. The total number it now protects against is 79,538.
The top ten hoaxes reported to Sophos during January 2003 are as
follows:
"The JDBGMGR hoax is still the most problematic of the email
hoaxes," continued Wraight. "We all have a part to play in slowing
down the spread of this hoax. If you receive this email, simply
delete it."
Sophos has made available a free, constantly updated information feed for intranets and
websites which means users can always find out about the latest
viruses and 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.