Security vendor Sophos has published a report revealing the top ten viruses causing problems for businesses around the world during the month of March 2005.
The report, compiled from Sophos’s global network of monitoring stations, shows that Zafi-D, which first appeared at the end of 2004, is the most commonly encountered virus for the fourth consecutive month, accounting for 45.1% of all reports. The chart is dominated by old viruses, with only one of the top ten, Sober-K, having first appeared in 2005.
“In March 2005, the virus top ten consisted mostly of older viruses such as Zafi-D and multiple versions of the Netsky worms,” says Mohammad Noraiee, managing director of Al Adeeb Information Technology.
“It’s apparent that these viruses are continuing to earn a spot on the Top Ten because many computer users are simply not keeping their anti-virus protection up-to-date and not practicing safe computing. Since so many older threats remained steadfast during the month, newer threats didn’t make it onto the list,” he adds.
Sophos research also shows that 2.62%, or one in 38 emails, circulating during the month of March were viral. This figure is significantly lower than last month when 1 in 28 emails were viral.
In order to minimise exposure to viruses, Sophos recommends that companies deploy a policy at their email gateway which blocks unwanted executable attachments from being sent into their organisation from the outside world. Companies should also run up-to-date anti-virus software, firewalls and install the latest security patches.
