Virus Top Twenty for March 2005

Kaspersky Lab presents the Virus Top Twenty for March 2005

The situation that we've seen for the past few months continues, with Bagle, NetSky, Mydoom, Zafi and Lovgate competing with each other for places in our rankings. This month, our top three has changed again, with NetSky taking the top three places for the first time this year. And heading the chart is NetSky.q, the most widespread worm of 2004.

A surprise this month was the appearance of Mytob, a completely new family of worms. Malicious programs from this family are spreading actively, and Mytob.c, which was first detected on 4th March, is already in 4th place. This version is still spreading fast, and at the moment of writing, it's effectively heading the table. The other 15 versions of Mytob, in comparison with Mytob.c, are relatively inactive.

Analysis shows that source code from Mydoom.a was used to create Mytob. However, some changes were made: Mytob also propagates via the LSASS vulnerability in the same way that Sasser did. This means that the worm has two replication mechanisms, which makes it a dangerous opponent indeed. Lovgate.w still maintains a presence in our Top Twenty, continuing to move up and down the table - this month it jumped up 7 places. And Lovgate.ae, another representative of this family is also back in our rankings this month.

posted by Unknown @ 16:46