Sophos has revealed the top ten viruses causing problems for businesses around the world during the month of November 2005.
The report reveals that, despite being detected very late in the month, the Sober-Z worm has stormed to the top of the charts, and at its peak accounted for 1 in every 13 emails sent. The proliferation of Sober-Z has caused Netsky-P, the worm written by convicted German teenager Sven Jaschan, to fall to second position after dominating the number one spot for the past four months.
The top ten viruses in November were as follows:
1 W32/Sober-Z 42.9%
2 W32/Netsky-P 8.1%
3 W32/Mytob-GH 6.8%
4 W32/Mytob-EX 4.5%
5 W32/Zafi-D 4.0%
6 W32/Mytob-BE 2.3%
7 W32/Zafi-B 2.1%
8 W32/Mytob-AS 1.6%
9 W32/Netsky-D 1.2%
10 W32/Mytob-C 1.1%
Others 25.4%
The new Sober-Z worm, which currently accounts for a massive 42.9% of all viruses reported to Sophos, sends itself as an email attachment and attempts to turn off security software on the user's computer. Once the attached file is run, the worm scans the user's hard drive for email addresses, in its search for other computers to infect. The author of this worm has been operating anonymously for more than two years, and this latest threat is the cyber criminal's most widespread virus yet.
Carole Theriault, senior security consultant at Sophos said,
"Since we saw the first Sober worm back in October 2003, its author has tried to improve upon tried-and-tested tricks to dupe computer users into launching infected attachments. This latest worm purports to be a warning from CIA and FBI agents, accusing recipients of visiting illegal web sites. Mocking the feds is a sure-fire way of goading the authorities, and you can't help but wonder whether the author is desperate to be caught."
Sober worms are frequently bilingual, configured to spread in both English and German. As well as posing as communication from an FBI or CIA agent, Sober-Z also references the German version of "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" as well as US star Paris Hilton.
This month's chart consists of only three virus families - Netsky, Mytob and Zafi, indicating that virus writers are continuing to create variants of established threats, which prove most effective for financial gain.
Sophos research shows that 2.7%, or 1 in 38 emails circulating in November were viral.
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