Old viruses and "hoaxes" still litter PCs

AV FIRM Sophos released figures for September that show the top 10 viruses it has recorded worldwide, and the top ten "hoaxes" this month.

Carole Theriault, a security consultant at the firm, said: "It's disheartening that the same old viruses are continuing to cause trouble for computer users the world over. Keeping your defences up to date to prevent infections is the only way we will see the back of these nasties".

Here's the Sophos list - there's an awful lot of W32/Netsky in here:

Rating	Name	Percentage	Spotted
1	W32/Zafi-B	30.5%	June 04
2	W32/Netsky-P	26.7%	March 04
3	W32/Netsky-D	6.1%	March 04
4	W32/Netsky-Z	5.5%	April 04
5	W32/Bagle-AA	3,8%	April 04
6	W32/MyDoom-O	3.6%	July 04
7	W32/Netsky-B	3.5%	Feb 04
8	W32/Netsky-Q	2.7%	March 04
9	W32/Lovegate-V	2.6%	April 04
10	W32/Netsky-C	2.0%	Feb 04
Others		13%

Zafi-B has declined over the last three months, but is "still a force to be reckoned with," said Theriault. Sophos discovered 1,150 new viruses this month, and said over 6.6% of emails were viral in nature.

As far as hoaxes are concerned, "lottery" spams enter the Sophos chart for the first time this month. µ

L'INQ
Sophos