Trojans come first

Johannesburg, 04 Dec 2007

Trojans (25%) and adware (23%) caused most computer infections in November, according to data gathered by Panda Security.

"This has been the trend throughout the year. The reason behind this is the fact that both malware types allow cyber-crooks to obtain financial benefit: Trojans through theft of confidential data like banking and e-mail passwords; and adware through companies that pay cyber-crooks to display unsolicited advertising of their products through pop-ups, banners, etc," explains Jeremy Matthews, CE of Panda Security South Africa.

Worms (9%) were the third type of most harmful malware in November. Backdoors (4%), spyware (3%), diallers (3%) and bots (2%) were the culprits for the rest of the infections, according to Panda Security.

"Thirty-one percent of infections have been grouped under the heading 'others`. This refers to multiple malware types (viruses, hacking tools, PUPs, etc) which, even though they don`t account for a large percentage of infections separately, they do so when put together. This also proves that today there is a greater variety of malware than ever," says Matthews.

Most active

The ranking of malware that most computers have infected is headed by the Downloader.MDW Trojan, designed to download other malicious code onto systems, explains Matthews.

"Second place is Lineage.BZE, created to steal passwords for online games. The third most harmful malicious code in November is Brontok.H, a worm that spreads by sending e-mails and copying itself to the computers it infects."

The Puce.E and Autorun.DZ worms take fourth and fifth place, respectively, followed by the VideoAddon adware, created to display ads in pop-ups, he says.

Seventh place is Dropper.UN, and the Perlovga.A worm comes in at eight. The Hupigon.AZG backdoor and the PC-Prot adware occupy the ninth and 10th positions in the ranking, Matthews concludes.