Sophos: Top 10 Viruses and Hoaxes in January 2004
Sophos, a world leader in protecting businesses against spam and viruses, has revealed the top ten viruses and hoaxes causing problems for businesses around the world.
The report, which examines virus and hoax reports in the month of January 2004, reveals two new entrants – the MyDoom and Bagle worms – took the top two positions in the chart.
The top ten viruses in January 2004 were as follows:
1. W32/MyDoom-A (MyDoom worm) 25.1% NEW ENTRY
2. W32/Bagle-A (Bagle worm) 16.3% NEW ENTRY
3. W32/Sober-C (Sober variant) 9.9%
4. W32/Dumaru-A (Dumaru virus) 5.3%
5. W32/Mimail-J (Mimail variant) 3.1%
6. W32/Mimail-A (Mimail worm) 2.7%
7. W32/Mimail-K (Mimail variant) 2.6%
8. W32/Mimail-C (Mimail variant) 2.2%
9. W32/Mimail-I (Mimail variant) 1.0%
10.W32/Klez-H (Klez variant) 0.8% 24 MONTHS IN CHART
Others 31.0%
“Two new entrants dominate January’s chart, yet both were first detected late in the month,” said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos. “The MyDoom worm – which launched a denial of service attack on SCO’s website and clogged up thousands of email inboxes – only appeared on 26 January and accounted for one in four reports.”
“The Bagle worm was a shooting star. First detected halfway through the month, it shot up the chart in only a short amount of time,” continued Cluley. “But – rather like the similarly named Beagle Mars rover – Bagle’s popularity was short-lived. It was designed to fall dormant on 28 January.”
Sophos analysed and protected against 608 new viruses in January. The total number of viruses Sophos now protects against is 87,419.
The top ten hoaxes repor
ted to Sophos during January are as follows:
1. Hotmail hoax 15.2% SIXTH MONTH AT NUMBER ONE
2. Meninas da Playboy 15.0%
3. Budweiser frogs screensaver 11.1%
4. A virtual card for you 6.8%
5. Bonsai kitten 6.2%
6. JDBGMGR 4.1%
7. Elf Bowling 3.8%
8. Bill Gates fortune 3.6%
9. Applebees Gift Certificate 2.4%
10.Frog in a blender/Fish in a bowl 2.2%
Others 29.6%
“The Hotmail hoax refuses to shift from top place in the chart,” said Cluley. “Hoaxes and chain letters clog email servers and waste valuable bandwidth – all companies are advised to implement an anti-hoax policy.”