Sophos, a world leader in protecting businesses against viruses,
spyware and spam, has revealed the most prevalent malware threats
and hoaxes causing problems for businesses around the world during
June 2006.
The report, compiled from Sophos's global network of monitoring
stations, reveals that the Netsky-P worm, first seen in March 2004,
remains the most widespread piece of malware spreading via email.
The family of Mytob worms are also causing multiple infections,
with four variants appearing in the top ten.
Sophos now protects against a total of 180,292 different pieces
of malware*.
The top ten list of malware in June 2006 reads as follows:
"The Netsky-P worm continues to cast a long shadow over the list
of most widespread malware, and its sad to think that there are
still computers out there which aren't protected against it," said
Graham Cluley,
senior technology consultant at Sophos. "Businesses are being
bombarded with spam and malicious viral emails from infected home
PCs. It's in everyone's interest that these contagious computers
are cleaned up, and better protected in future to prevent
reinfection."
The top ten hoaxes and chain letters in June 2006 were as
follows:
"The Olympic Torch hoax has been knocked from its lead position
in the pack of hoaxes clogging up email inboxes to see the old
faithful Hotmail hoax overtake it," said Cluley. "Hoaxes and chain
letters can cause users to panic, and it's wise to remember to
always think twice and check the facts before forwarding an email
warning."
Graphics of the above top ten virus chart are available.
* Note that Sophos has changed the way in which it
calculates and reports the threats that it protects against to more
accurately reflect the number of individual threats detected by its
proactive Genotype technology.
Sophos is headquartered in Boston, US and Oxford, UK. More information is available at www.sophos.com.