New malware dominated by Trojans

Panda Security announced the findings from its second quarterly report of 2008 which revealed that Trojans comprised over 63 percent of all new malicious codes. Adware followed closely behind, comprising 22.40 percent of all infections. PandaLabs specifically addresses the threat of banker Trojans, as well as specific worm strains that have been most prevalent in malware infections in the last quarter.

Banker Trojans have been identified as the most dangerous and damaging of all types of Trojans in circulation. According to the PandaLabs’ Q2 report, Sinowal, Banbra and Bancos are the three most active banker Trojan families. Other families, including Dumador, SpyForms, Bandiv, PowerGrabber and Bankpatch also have numerous variants, while there has been less activity in the Briz, Snatch and Nuklus families of banker Trojans.

Worms were also on the rise representing 13.5 percent of all malware infections. Trojans are responsible for the most infections, but they do it with thousands of different variants. Worms, however, operate in a different way, with perhaps one strain being responsible for tens of thousands of infections. In terms of individual malicious code, worms are often the most prevalent.

With respect to the virulence of specific examples, the Bagle.RP worm infected most computers, followed by the Puce.E and Bagle.SP worms. The following table indicates the most active malware samples detected by PandaLabs.

1. W32/Bagle.RP.worm
2. W32/Puce.E.worm
3. W32/Bagle.SP.worm
4. Adware/AdsRevenue
5. W32/Perlovga.A.worm
6. W32/Bagle.KV.worm
7. Adware/Maxifiles
8. Trj/Dropper.UN
9. W32/Whybo.I.worm
10. Trj/Rebooter.J