Netsky worm tops October virus lists

Sophos has revealed the most prevalent malware threats and hoaxes causing problems for computer users around the world during October 2006. The report, compiled from Sophos’s global network of monitoring stations, shows that while the well-known Netsky-P has proved once again to be the most prevalent piece of malware in circulation, variants of the Stratio worm have entered the top ten for the first time. Several hundred variants of the worm were widely spammed out during the month, on some days accounting for more than 50% of all reported malware.

Sophos experts note that on the one-year anniversary of Get Safe Online – the national campaign to raise awareness about the risks of leaving computers unprotected online – established virus families such as Netsky, Mytob and Zafi continue to cause havoc for UK internet users, despite protection having long been available.

The proportion of infected email continues to remain low, at just one in 300 (0.34%), while during October Sophos identified 3,076 new threats, bringing the total number of malware protected against to 193,821.

The top ten list of malware in October 2006 reads as follows:

 1.    Netsky-P       15.2%

 2.    Mytob-AS       12.2%

 3.    Stratio-Zip     5.7%  new entry

 4.    Bagle-Zip       5.3%

 5.    Netsky-D        5.1%

 6.    Stratio-AY      4.3%  new entry

 7.    Mytob-C         3.5%

 8.    Zafi-B          3.4%

 9.    Nyxem-D         3.1%

10.    Mytob-E         2.6%