Sober worm takes top spot again, with new variant
Sophos, a world leader in protecting businesses against spam and
viruses, has revealed the top ten viruses and hoaxes causing
problems for businesses around the world.
The report, which examines virus and hoax reports in the month
of December 2003, shows new worm variants Mimail-K and Sober-C are
the most commonly reported, while the Hotmail hoax takes the top
spot for a fifth month running.
The top ten viruses in December 2003 were as follows:
"The Sober-C worm, which spread by email and peer-to-peer
networks, was first seen on 21 December, yet it still managed to be
the most reported worm of the month," said Carole Theriault,
security consultant at Sophos. "Despite Sober-C's top position on
the chart, the different Mimail variants accounted for nearly a
third of all reports at 29.7%."
Sophos analysed and protected against 730 new viruses in
December. The total number of viruses Sophos now protects against
is 86,811.
"With more than 700 new viruses arriving in our lab during
December, it's fair to say that virus writers were not interested
in taking a break over the festive period," continued
Theriault.
The top ten hoaxes reported to Sophos during December are as
follows:
"The seasonal hoax, Elf Bowling, re-entered the chart in
December, just in time for Christmas. The hoax claims that a
bowling game with elves as pins is a virus which will activate on
Christmas day," said Theriault.
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.