After a brief lull in September, there has been a record increase in the number of viruses loose worldwide, say anti-virus software vendors.
Sophos and Kaspersky Labs say October saw the largest number of new viruses reported in a single month since their records began.
Sophos notes that October saw the biggest increase in virus numbers since its records began, with 1 685 identified.
Kaspersky notes that October "was rich in new malicious programs". In the space of a single week, Kaspersky virus analysts broke their own record, adding more than 1 400 new records to the anti-virus databases.
Both vendors report that the Mytob worm and its variants were among the most prevalent viruses last month, with Kaspersky saying: "It's highly likely that this worm (Mytob.c) will turn out to be the most widespread malicious program of 2005."
Local Sophos distributor Netxactics says Netsky-P, the worm written by convicted German teenager Sven Jaschan, still heads its list of the worst viruses for the month.
However, Mytob-GH, which first appeared on 16 October, is already in second place and showing no sign of abating. "This Mytob variant is well placed to topple Netsky-P from the top of the chart in November," says Netxactics.
"The creators of Mytob appear to be a gang of virus writers called Hellbot. By having several gang members, they can easily issue several different variants in a short space of time," says Brett Myroff, CEO of Netxactics.
"There are six variants of the Mytob worm in the October chart, half of which are new entries."
Kaspersky adds that second on its monthly list of the worst viruses worldwide is a newcomer, Doombot.b, one of a so-called 'new generation' of worms. It combines e-mail worm and IRC bot functionality, as does Mytob, and is based on the Mydoom source code.
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