Top Ten Viruses and Hoaxes Reported to Sophos in October 2004

Sophos, a world leader in protecting businesses against spam and viruses, has published a report revealing the top ten viruses and hoaxes causing problems for businesses around the world.





The report, compiled from Sophos's global network of monitoring stations, shows that the most prevalent viruses in October were Netsky-P and Zafi-B, both of which have topped the chart since June.

The top ten viruses in October 2004, and the month they were first seen, were as follows:

1. W32/Netsky-P 35.2% March 04
2. W32/Zafi-B 28.0% June 04
3. W32/Netsky-D 7.0% March 04
4. W32/Netsky-Z 5.8% April 04
5. W32/Bagle-AA 4.4% April 04
6. W32/Netsky-B 3.9% February 04
7. W32/Netsky-Q 2.6% March 04
8. W32/MyDoom-O 2.2% July 04
9. W32/Netsky-C 1.9% February 04
10. W32/Bagle-Zip 1.0% NEW ENTRY

Others 8.0%

"Netsky-P and Zafi-B continue to be the most common viruses, with thousands of their infectious email offspring traversing the 'net despite protection against them being readily available," said Sean Richmond, Senior Technical Consultant at Sophos Australia New Zealand. "This suggests a large base of out-of-date or unprotected machines continue to cause problems for the rest of the computing world. With the exception of Bagle-Zip, every entry in the top ten has been detectable for several months.

"With Netsky variants being the most common viruses currently, it will be interesting to see what awaits Sven Jaschan when he comes to trial in 2005. Jaschan, who confessed to writing the Netsky and Sasser worms after his arrest in May, has had his trial postponed due to the difficulty of all parties agreeing to an earlier date."

Sophos analysed and protected against 1,131 new viruses in October. The total number of viruses Sophos now protects against is 96,156. Sophos figures show that more than 4.6%, or one in 22 emails, circulating during the month of October were viral.

Graphics of the above top ten virus chart are available at: www.sophos.com.au/pressoffice/imgallery/topten

For more information about safe computing, including anti-hoax policies, please visit: http://www.sophos.com.au/virusinfo/bestpractice/

Source: press release





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