Central Command: Top 12 Viruses For August 2003

August 2003 is worse virus month in history; Worm/Sobig.F dominates the chart

MEDINA, Ohio September 1, 2003 – Central Command, a leading provider of PC anti-virus software and computer security services today released its monthly listing of the top twelve viruses reported for August, 2003. The report, coined the “Dirty Dozen”, is based on the number of virus occurrences confirmed through Central Command’s Emergency Virus Response Team.

The table below represents the most prevalent viruses for August 2003, number one being the most frequent.

Ranking Virus Name Percentage
1. Worm/Sobig.F 76.8%
2. Worm/Lovsan.A (Blaster) 6.4%
3. Worm/MiMail.A 5.1%
4. Worm/Nachi.A 4.0%
5. Worm/Klez.E (including G) 2.1%
6. Worm/Dumaru.A 2.0%
7. Worm/Sobig.A 0.9%
8. Worm/BugBear.B 0.7%
9. W32/Sircam.A 0.6%
10. Worm/Yaha.E 0.5%
11. Worm/Sobig.C 0.4%
12. Worm/Sobig.E 0.2%
Others 0.3%

“The month of August turned into a plague of Internet worms affecting computer users worldwide. Multiple aggressive Internet worms, made it the worst month in history for the number of infections reported, impacted organizations and lost productivity,” said Steven Sundermeier, Vice President of Products and Services at Central Command, Inc. According to Central Command’s Emergency Virus Response Team, the top nuisance, Worm/Sobig.F accounted for over 76% of the total confirmed virus infections. “The extremely aggressive spreading nature of Sobig.F created significant volumes of email traffic causing email networks around the world to collapse. At its peak, Sobig.F related emails accounted for nearly 73% of all email.” Global virus epidemics for August included Worm/MiMail.A, Worm/Lovsan.A (Blaster) + variants, Worm/Nachi.A, Worm/Dumaru.A and Worm/Sobig.F.