While the number thirteen may be unlucky for some, it is exactly the number of months it has taken the Klez-H virus to write itself into Sophos’ record books. Back up from the number three slot it held in January, the virulent internet worm has regained top billing for February as it accounted for 13.7% of all reported viruses.
Klez’s success can, to a large extent, be blamed on the abject failure of organisations to protect against it, as both patches and warnings for the virus have been around since it first emerged well over a year ago. According to Sophos’ sound byte king, Graham Cluey, there is just no excuse for this.
“People infected by Klez couldn’t have updated their protection in yonks. Considering that it’s now possible to automatically update your anti-virus software every hour, there really are no excuses,” he says.
Klez’s counterpart in Sophos’ virus hoax chart goes to JDBGMGR, which Cluey describes as one of the biggest of all time. “Never mind crop circles, spaghetti growing on trees, or the supposed clues on the Abbey Road album cover that Beatle Paul McCartney had died and been replaced by an imposter, it’s JDBGMGR that’s fast becoming the hoax of all time,” he somewhat bizarrely says.
“JDBGMGR is right up there with Klez when it comes to creating computer user confusion, but this needn’t be the case. People receiving this message should simply delete it and not be tempted to forward it to all their contacts ‘just in case’ it is a real virus warning,” he continues.
When all told, Sophos detected 541 new viruses, worms and Trojan horses in February, raising the total number it now protects against is 80,079.
