Sober-C reclaims top spot
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 February 2004, shows MyDoom-A slip off the top spot, to allow
for Sober-C's return to the number one position.
The top ten viruses in February 2004 were as follows:
"Though protection for it has been available since December,
Sober-C managed to claim the top position again, ahead of several
higher profile worms including Mydoom-A, Netsky-B and Bagle-B,"
said Sean Richmond, Sophos's Technical Support Manager for
Australia and New Zealand. "Sober-C travels via email and KaZaA
networks and is continuing to spread widely - perhaps a sign that
those being affected, should automate anti-virus updates to
strengthen their defences against known threats."
"MyDoom-A, which used its large network of infected machines to
attack SCO's website, may well have taken the lead if not for the
built in expiry date of February 12. As it stands, it still managed
to be the second most reported virus this month," continued
Richmond. "MyDoom-B attempted a similar attack on Microsoft's
website, however this worm fizzled and was not among Sophos's top
ten."
February also saw some increased action in the fight against
computer crime, with Microsoft offering another bounty of USD
250,000 to catch the author of Mydoom-B and the arrest of a female
virus writer in Belgium known as Gigabyte.
Sophos analysed and protected against 869 new viruses in
February. The total number of viruses Sophos now protects against
is 88,288.
The top ten hoaxes reported to Sophos during February are as
follows:
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.