Canadian singer, Avril Lavigne topped the charts in January 2003 — viruses named in her honour accounted for 30% of calls to Sophos’ virus support centre.
The Avril worms were first seen at the beginning of the year, and they are joined in the top ten by two other new entries, Yaha-K and Sobig worm.
“2002 ended with a few persistent offenders dominating the virus chart,” says Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant, Sophos Anti-Virus.
“This month also saw the arrival of the Slammer worm — exploiting a six month old vulnerability. It reinforced the need for everyone to ensure their patches are kept up to date,” he continues.
Sophos detected 521 new viruses, worms and Trojan horses in January. The top ten were as follows.
1 W32/Avril-B (16.8% of calls to Sophos’ support center)
2 W32/Avril-A (12.4%)
3 W32/Klez-H (12.1%)
4 W32/Sobig-A (6.1%)
5 W32/Yaha-K (5.7%)
6 W32/Bugbear-A (5.6%)
7 W32/Yaha-E (3.3%)
8 W32/ElKern-C (2.1%)
9 W95/Spaces (1.5%)
10 W32/Flcss (1.2%)
