Top malware targets media player

Johannesburg, 06 Nov 2008

Kaspersky Security Network has released its latest statistics on the world's most widespread malicious programs.

The October malware statistics report found that Trojan-Downloader.WMA.Wimad.n took first place as the most widespread malicious program. The malicious code exploits a vulnerability in Windows Media Player and causes the multimedia platform to download other Trojan programs to the victim machine.

The good news is the report shows the number of Trojan programs is dropping, with a 70% to 50% reduction this month, Kaspersky says.

In a press release, Kaspersky says: “Overall, 39 240 unique, malicious programs, adware programs and potentially unwanted programs were detected on users computers in September. Clearly, the number of threats in the wild is increasing, and this month the increase was approximately 4 000 with 35 103 programs detected in September.”

There have only been small changes on Kaspersky's list of malicious programs that most often infect objects on victim machines.

Nimbda headed the August rankings, with Xorer.du taking its place in September and Mazebat.b moving into the top spot in October.

According to Kaspersky, Mazebat.b was first detected in November last year and has now made a comeback this month. It says the botnet created by this worm is among the top 10 largest botnets on the Internet.

The Sality.aa virus, one of the programs at the top of the list, has also become one of the top three most common malicious programs. Kaspersky says this is cause for concern.