Security news
Security news17 December 2004
Zafi-D worm threat begins to subside, but Sophos warns users not to be complacent
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| Sophos warns that users dazzled by the Christmas lights may be blinded to the risks of malicious email attachments. |
The impact of the W32/Zafi-D worm, which disguised itself as an electronic Christmas card, has reduced from its peak of 1 in every 10 emails earlier this week, to 1 in 30 in the last 24 hours according to reports from Sophos's global network of monitoring stations.
Although still the most prevalent active virus, accounting for 54% of all virus reports in the last day, the Zafi-D worm is having less of an impact as more computer users disinfected their PCs, and woke up to the need to protect themselves with up-to-date anti-virus software.
"Even though the number of infected emails it is generating is reducing, we wouldn't be surprised to see the Zafi-D worm still spreading successfully in the wild for months to come," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant. "The sad truth is that it seems there will always be computers connected to the internet which are poorly defended against threats, and they will continue to spread viruses which attempt to infect the rest of us."
Sophos is warning users to remain vigilant of other viruses which may use Christmas and holiday-related themes in an attempt to fool users into opening them.
"There has been a long history of computer worms which have taken advantage of the Christmas and New Year celebrations. Users must not let down their guard - if the holiday season makes them blind to the security risks then hackers and virus writers will pounce," continued Cluley. "Every computer user should show caution before opening unexpected email attachments at any time of the year."
Sophos recommends companies protect their email gateways with a consolidated solution to thwart the virus and spam threats as well as secure their desktop and servers with automatically updated anti-virus protection.
