Worm variants dominate in July

The appearance of the Zafi and MyDoom variants caused some headaches worldwide in July, but there were few new worms reported in what was essentially a quiet month, say anti-virus vendors.

According to Kaspersky Labs, the Zafi.b worm variant was by far the most prevalent last month, responsible for over 57% of reported cases. Kaspersky says the high prevalence of Zafi.b was a surprising development, given that it was “an average worm, with nothing interesting in the code or the social engineering methods used to trick users into opening infected attachments”.

The only unusual aspect of the worm was that it changed the language of the incoming e-mail in accordance with the recipient's country, which Kaspersky says could likely have contributed to its high level of infection.

Y3K MD Ryan Price says the MyDoom.e variant caused a significant stir, posing a number of problems to Internet service providers. “It created a bit of havoc – I think Yahoo was even shut down as a result of it.”

While it may not have been the most severe month in terms of virus attacks, six of the top ten viruses have been attributed to Sven Jaschan, the 18-year-old German arrested for creating the Netsky and Sasser worms.

The Telegraph reports that the teenager is responsible for 70% of Internet viruses in the first half of 2004. Price adds that Jaschan does not fit the “usual” hacker demographic.

“It was quite surprising to find out that he was actually a German teenager who was working alone. Usually you find most of the major viruses originate in China or Russia, and are mostly done by a syndicate or group of hackers.”

Despite the severity of the attacks, Jaschan faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison.

Headline

Comment

Name

Email

I have read and agree to the Terms of Usage.

Please enter the CAPTCHA characters below