Top Ten Viruses and Hoaxes Reported to Sophos in May 2005 (News Release)   - 1,820 Views, 1 Comment

The top ten viruses in May 2005 were as follows:

1 W32/Sober-N 43.8% New entry
2 W32/Zafi-D 14.5%
3 W32/Netsky-P 13.1%
4 W32/Netsky-D 3.1%
5 W32/Zafi-B 2.0%
6 W32/Mytob-AZ 1.6% New Entry
7 W32/Mytob-Z 1.5%
=7 W32/Netsky-Z 1.5%
=7 W32/Mytob-E 1.5%
10 32/Netsky-N 1.4%

Others 16.0%

“In May, we saw a lot of activity surrounding Sober-N as it cunningly
climbed the chart by using social engineering tricks, such as offering free
World Cup tickets, to lure recipients into opening the infected attachment,”
said Gregg Mastoras, senior security analyst at Sophos. “The Sober-Q Trojan
searched for computers infected with the Sober-N worm and attempted to
secretly turn them into spamming machines, better known as zombies. Sophos
customers were proactively protected against Sober-Q due to Sophos’s
Genotype(TM) technology.”
“Mytob-AZ was another mass-mailing worm, which was accompanied by a
backdoor Trojan that allowed others to access the infected user’s computer,”
continued Mastoras. “Although it accounted for only 1.6% of viruses in May, it
could potentially cause severe damage to businesses that were not
appropriately protected.”
Sophos identified and protected against 1,515 new viruses in May. The
number of viruses Sophos protects against now totals 104,784. Research shows
that 2.62%, or one in 38 emails, circulating during the month of May were
viral — a small increase over the previous month.
To minimize exposure to viruses, Sophos recommends that companies deploy a
policy at their email gateway, which blocks unwanted executable attachments
from being allowed into their organizations. Companies should also run up-to-
date anti-virus software, firewalls and install the latest security patches.

The top ten hoaxes reported to Sophos during May 2005 were as follows:

1 Hotmail hoax 17.2% Eleventh month at number one
2 Meninas da Playboy 11.3%
3 Bonsai kitten 9.4%
4 Jamie Bulger 5.9%
5 WTC survivor 5.9%
6 A virtual card for you 5.2%
7 Bill Gates fortune 3.5%
8 Budweiser frog screensaver 3.4%
9 Mobile phone hoax 2.7%
10 Applebees Gift Certificate 2.6%

Others 32.9%

“We’ve seen very little movement on the hoax chart this month,” said
Mastoras. “Most of the hoaxes on the top ten have lingered for months. Quite
frankly, the best advice for computer users receiving this sort of hoax email
is to simply ignore and delete them. Additionally, having an anti-spam
solution in place will also help reduce the impact of hoaxes and chain
letters.”
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: http://www.sophos.com/virusinfo/infofeed/