Security news
Security news30 April 2001
Top ten viruses reported to Sophos in April 2001
This is the latest in a series of monthly charts counting down the ten most frequently occurring viruses as compiled by Sophos, a world leader in corporate anti-virus protection.
For April 2001, the chart is as follows, with the most frequently occurring virus at number one:
| Position | Last month |
Malware | Percentage of reports | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 4= | W32/Magistr-A |
| ||
| 2 | 2 | VBS/Kakworm |
| ||
| 3 | 3 | W32/Hybris-B |
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| 4 | 1 | W32/Apology-B |
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| 5 | Re-entry | W32/Flcss |
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| 6= | Re-entry | W95/CIH-10xx |
| ||
| 6= | New | W32/Badtrans-A |
| ||
| 8= | Re-entry | W32/Qaz |
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| 8= | 8 | WM97/Marker-C |
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| 8= | 10 | W32/Bymer-A |
| ||
| Others | 19.1% | ||||
"April's top ten is dominated by the Magistr worm," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at
April also saw the payload date of the Chernobyl (CIH) virus. Every year on April 26th (the anniversary of the Chernobyl incident) the virus attempts to overwrite infected systems' hard disks and wipe their BIOS chips, effectively leaving computers unusable. The virus was first seen in June 1998 and caused significant amounts of damage to computers in April 1999 and April 2000. This year saw fewer reports of the virus than in previous years - even so, clearly many people have failed to keep their anti-virus protection sufficiently up to date.
1288 new viruses were discovered and protected against by Sophos during April 2001.
The total number of viruses Sophos detects and protects against is 63,180.
Compiled by Sophos's technical support team, the top ten chart is collated from calls to Sophos's 24 hour, 365 days a year technical support line.
Graphics of the above Top Ten chart are available here.
About Sophos
Sophos enables enterprises all over the world to secure and control their IT infrastructure. Sophos's network access control, endpoint, web and email solutions simplify security to provide integrated defenses against malware, spyware, intrusions, unwanted applications, spam, policy abuse, data leakage and compliance drift. With over 20 years of experience, Sophos protects over 100 million users in nearly 150 countries with its reliably engineered security solutions and services. Recognized for its high level of customer satisfaction and powerful yet easy-to-use solutions, Sophos has received many industry awards, as well as positive reviews and certifications.
Sophos is headquartered in Boston, US and Oxford, UK. More information is available at www.sophos.com
