Local Sophos distributor Netxactics reports that Sophos detected 7 944 new viruses this year - up 59% from the first six months of last year.
The anti-virus firm also reports that there was a marked drop in the average time to infection. There is now a 50% chance of being infected by an Internet worm within 12 minutes of being online using an unprotected, unpatched Windows PC, says Netxactics CEO Brett Myroff.
Kaspersky Labs` recent top virus reports have noted that Mytob and Mydoom have been prevalent, with Sober variants featuring strongly.
Kaspersky`s report for June says: "Mytob was flavor of the month in June. We had Mytob with worm and bot capabilities, Mytob without bot capabilities, Mytob packed with one, two or three packers and so forth. In short, Mytob variants dominated e-mail traffic this month."
Symantec also lists several Mytob variants among recent virus threats.
For the first six months of 2005, the top 10 viruses recorded by SophosLabs included the Zafi-D worm, which accounts for more than a quarter of all viruses reported to Sophos so far this year. Netsky variants featured strongly in the top 10, which also included the bilingual Sober-N.
"The Sober family of worms show how much damage can now be done through a zombie machine," says Myroff.
"The combined effort of spammers, virus writers and their zombie armies are certainly a force to be reckoned with. Increasingly, legitimate organisations are being thrown into the firing line - finding themselves being identified as sources of spam.
"The threats are consolidating - it`s becoming more blurred as to whether something is a spam, a spyware, a phish, or a virus problem. Businesses must ensure they are protected against all of these threats," continues Myroff. "Furthermore, it makes sense to source your security solution from a vendor who has expertise in all of these areas in-house - allowing nothing to slip through the net."
Netsky-P, which was the hardest-hitting virus of 2004, still features in lists of the most prevalent viruses. Myroff says German teenager Sven Jaschan, who confessed to writing the Netsky and Sasser worms over a year ago, goes to trial next week on charges of computer sabotage, data manipulation and disruption of public systems.
Sophos has seen a threefold increase in the number of keylogging Trojans so far this year. "What we are witnessing is a stampede of new Trojan horses every day.
"Although some familiar worms have a tight grip on the charts, the growth in Trojan horses is perhaps the most significant development in malware-writing. Trojans don`t normally make the charts because they don`t spread under their own steam, and are increasingly being used for targeted attacks designed to make money or steal information."
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