Security news13 January 1999
1998 dubbed "year of firsts" as record number of new virus types break
Antivirus vendors had one of their busiest years yet in 1998, with a greater number of significant new viruses appearing than ever before. According to a report by Sophos, seven major new virus types were discovered last year.
The most interesting and possibly the most dangerous discovery was CIH, the first hardware-attacking virus. Although it did not appear until June, CIH was the eighth most reported virus of 1998. Along with Marburg, CIH also marked the resurgence of parasitic viruses which spread by attaching themselves to .EXE files.
Other viruses proved over-hyped. "Strange Brew", the first virus to infect Java applications, appeared in August. It caused a flurry of concern, which was largely unfounded because the virus infects Java applications, and cannot spread via web-based Java. In addition, the first Visual Basic Script (VBS) viruses were discovered in October.
Microsoft Office 97 was a major target for virus writers in 1998 with the appearance of three new virus types. April saw the first Access virus, while "StrangeDays" and "Shiver" marked the first "cross-infectors" able to contaminate both Word and Excel files with the same code. The last major component of the Office 97 suite fell victim to attack right at the end of the year in December, with the emergence of PM97/Attach, a virus which infects PowerPoint.
Even Windows NT was not immune. In December, "Remote Explorer" appeared, the first virus which is able to run as an NT service.
"The number of new virus types emerging has made 1998 a very interesting year," said Paul Ducklin, head of research at Sophos. "Whilst keeping abreast of developments, however, we must be careful not to lose sight of the old virus types. After all, the number one virus reported to Sophos in 1998 was the macro virus, Excel/Laroux."
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About Sophos
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.
