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Trojans, adware dominate

By Leon Engelbrecht, ITWeb senior writer
Johannesburg, 05 Jul 2007

Trojans and adware accounted for 49.6% of infections in June, says Panda Software SA. Trojans were to blame for 26.89% of infections and adware for 22.72%.

"These figures confirm that most new malicious code is mainly created to fraudulently obtain financial benefit," says Panda CE Jeremy Matthews. Other types of threats move along the same parameters as in May, with worms taking third place in the ranking (8.71%) followed by backdoor Trojans (3.87%), diallers (3.34%) and spyware (2.99%). Bots appear at the end of the list with 2.58% of infections.

In terms of the ranking of June's 10 most virulent malicious codes, Downloader.MDW is the leader. This Trojan is designed to download other malware onto computers. In second place comes the Brontok.H worm.

Next in line is Sdbot.ftp, the script used by this family of worms to download themselves via FTP. Having risen four places since last month, it is now dangerously close to the top of the list once again.

In fourth, up one place from May, comes the Puce.E worm, which spreads across peer-to-peer networks. The Dropper.UN Trojan comes next, rising from ninth place in the previous month. In sixth place is Perlovga.A. This Trojan, designed to steal personal data, is new in the ranking.

Another new code, the Lineage.BZE password stealer, is in seventh place. PcClient.DU, the only backdoor Trojan on the list, comes next. Ninth and 10th places go to Downloader.NOE, down five from last month, and another new entry, Lowzones.TP.

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