Sophos has released August’s top ten viruses and a warning that e-mail hoaxes are causing companies almost as much trouble, despite them being easy to block.
Top of the pops in the virus chart was Klez, yet again, and the list was dominated by old favourites.
“Only two viruses in August’s top ten are brand new entries. Instead, the chart is full of old stalwarts such as Klez-H, Badtrans-B, Sircam and Nimda,” says Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos Anti-Virus.
“Klez-H and its nasty bedfellow ElKern-C, have accounted for almost a quarter of enquiries to Sophos’ support centre this month, even though protection has been available since February. Users getting caught out by them appear not to have updated their anti-virus software in six months. With hundreds of new viruses appearing each month, this lax approach is just asking for a security breach,” he adds
Futher problems are caused by e-mail hoxes, proportedly warning of viruses or offering get rich quick schemes involing dodgy money from Nigeria. These hoaxes are essentially harmless, but can block up valuable bandwidth and generate concern among end users.
“Hoaxes continue to cause almost as much confusion as real viruses. The multi-lingual JDBGMGR hoax, which claimed to be an extremely dangerous virus, has been perplexing computer users ever since it first appeared in May,” says Cluley.
“Simple to implement anti-hoax policies can help limit this confusion and will prevent hoaxes from needlessly clogging up email servers and wasting valuable bandwidth,” he concludes.
