The battle for the top position in the virus top twenty between Mytob.c and Nyxem.e continues for the third month in a row.

The ten most prevalent viruses:

1. Net-Worm.Win32.Mytob.c - 20.00 per cent
   
2. Email-Worm.Win32.Nyxem.e - 16.22 per cent
   
3. Email-Worm.Win32.LovGate.w - 9.71 per cent
   
4. Email-Worm.Win32.Scano.gen - 5.88 per cent
   
5. Email-Worm.Win32.NetSky.b - 5.45 per cent
   
6. Net-Worm.Win32.Mytob.t - 5.08 per cent
   
7. Net-Worm.Win32.Mytob.u - 3.62 per cent
   
8. Email-Worm.Win32.Scano.aq - 2.52 per cent
   
9. Email-Worm.Win32.NetSky.t - 2.40 per cent
   
10. Net-Worm.Win32.Mytob.w - 1.63 per cent
    Other - 27.49 per cent

As before, the Top Twenty is largely made up of worms which have appeared in recent years, i.e. by variants of the old Mytob, NetSky and LovGate worms. In 2006 several malicious programs including Feebs, Scano, Bagle and Warezov seemed to aspire to participating in the virus race on a permanent basis. However, none of them managed to stay in the Top Twenty for more than a couple of months. Scano worms were back in September: the fourth position of the rating was taken by Scano.gen, i.e., by several variants of the worm at once. The most active variant, Scano.aq, is in 8th position.

As worms are showing little activity, some of the top positions in the rating have been taken by other types of malicious program found in mail traffic. In August we noted that Bankfraud.od, a phishing attack, was spreading. It's also present in the September statistics, one position lower than in August, in 13th position. Overall, the number of phishing attacks has increased substantially in 2006, a trend noted by practically all the major antivirus vendors.

One event in the battle against virus writers is worth mentioning: the conviction of the authors of numerous variants in the Mytob and Bozori worm families (e.g., Mytob.cg, which takes 14th position this month), the Moroccans Farid Essebar and Achraf Bahloul. Essebar was sentenced to two years in jail, Bahloul to one year.

Taking into account the arrest and conviction of Sven Jaschan, the author of NetSky, which is another widespread family, it can be concluded that the authors of viruses that cause global epidemics can after all be found and held accountable for their actions.

Related links: (Open in a new window.)
www.viruslist.com/en/analysis?pubid=199957843

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