Top viruses for November

By Matt Whipp

Posted on 28 Nov 2003 at 11:13

Counting on a quiet weekend, Sophos has released its chart of virus activity for the month.

In first place is Sober-A, which was actually discovered 27 October. Taking 32.6 per cent of reports, Sober-A caused enough havoc in November to push it to the top.

Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos, said: 'Sober-A sneakily disguises itself using a number of subject titles and messages, making it difficult to spot with the naked eye. It can even present itself in German if it thinks it is being examined on a German user's computer.'

Although it was rampant in Europe, it raised barely a ripple in Sophos' US office, most probably because of the localised versions: the poor English was a bit of a giveaway, but apparently the German versions were more fluent, suggesting the author was also German.

The Mimail viruses peppered the remainder of the top ten in second, third, fifth, eighth and tenth positions and taking a combined 28 per cent of reports.

Sophos believes the same author or group of authors is responsible for all the Mimail worms. 'The Mimail worms attempted a number of different tricks, including attempting to steal the credit card information from Paypal users,' said Cluley. 'The virus writers and hackers are becoming more
determined in their attempts to steal confidential information that could leave you out of pocket'.

Dumaru, Nachi and Klez make up the remainder of the chart.

Hoaxes for November were dominated by the Hotmail hoax which promises extra storage if you forward the email on to others, taking 31.3 per cent of reports.

More information is available on the Sophos website.