Netsky still dominating the virus chart
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 April 2004, shows four new viruses have entered the chart, with
Netsky variants taking seven places.
The top ten viruses in April 2004 were as follows:
"Several Netsky strains continued to cause serious difficulties
for unprotected computer users throughout the month of April. With
the author of the original Netsky worm claiming to have shared the
viral code, it's possible that copycats might be getting their paws
dirty by sending out new Netsky variants," said Carole Theriault,
security consultant, Sophos. "Although this flurry of virus
activity sounds like a nightmare, with automatically updated
anti-virus protection at the gateway and on the desktop, these
nasties can be stopped regardless of how they try to infiltrate the
network. Not only does this protect individual computers, but it
also helps slow down the rate of infection, which is good for all
of us."
Sophos analysed and protected against 740 new viruses in April.
The total number of viruses Sophos now protects against is
89,852.
The top ten hoaxes reported to Sophos during April are as
follows:
"A new entry to the hoax chart this month is the Nigerian letter
scam," continued Theriault. "Several versions of this letter exist,
all designed to defraud and extort money from email users. On a
positive note, one scammer, Peter Okoeguale, was this month
sentenced to 20 months in jail by a judge in North Wales after
police traced eleven of his victims."
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.