While the likes of Badtrans, SirCam and Magistr continue to hang around the Sophos top ten-virus chart like a worrying whiff, the MyParty virus was top of the pops for February as it hogged 18.9% of all reported incidents.
Graham Clueley, senior technology consultant for Sophos Anti-Virus, explains that many users were caught out by the fact that the virus purports to be an Internet link rather than exe. attachment.
“The MyParty worm duped computer users by pretending to be a link to a website containing snaps of groovy partygoers. But not everything that ends in dot-com is a web address, it can also be an executable file… It was a simple psychological trick and many people fell for it,” he explains.
Although the types of viruses may change best practices for avoiding MyParty and the other 738 viruses discovered in February remain the same. “The message is simple: stop double-clicking on unsolicited email attachments, even if they appear to come from someone you know,” says Clueley.
