Conficker Becoming Less Prevalent: BitDefender

According to BitDefender the security company, which recently released its security report for January 2011, infections from the much-known Conficker virus also called Win32.Worm.Downadup.Gen declined remarkably during January 2011. Specifically, the PC-worm fell in its ranking from No.1 to No.3, accounting for 5.78% of all malware attacks that the company identified during January 2011.

Remarking about this fresh occurrence, Head of Online Threats Lab Catalin Cosoi for BitDefender stated that Conficker had been an extremely widespread threat appearing in several variants during the past few years. The types of destruction it performed ranged from preventing the ability to open websites of security vendors to abusing poorly coded passwords, the chief explained. Techcentral.ie published this on February 9, 2011.

Cosoi further stated that since users were turning away from using Microsoft's Windows XP operating system as well as had improved in their awareness, the implication was that the worm had relatively become less prevalent unlike before. However, people still required keeping on guard to ensure their PCs were wholly secured against possible infection, he added.

Meanwhile, albeit Conficker is somewhat less widespread now, it seems that a new entrant Trojan.Crack.I has partially filled the void.

Talking about this malware, it's a Trojan that essentially disguises as a registration key generator so as to facilitate decoding of the defense mechanisms of shareware applications. Further, it captures data about software which's active on the infected PC, occasionally also creating a backdoor on the machine. And since its appearance has been on No.2, it appears evident that privacy is currently affecting the global scenario of software.

Moreover, since it has appeared simultaneously on the ten most-prevalent e-threats lists of different countries, it becomes evident that counterfeit software continues to be a hazard across UK, Spain, Germany and Romania.

Meanwhile, BitDefender mentions the names of other e-threats too on its Top 10 Charts, which are: Trojan.AutorunINF.Gen (7.40%) on No.1, and Gen:Variant.Adware.Hotbar.2 (4.26%), Java.Trojan.Downloader.OpenConnection.AI (3.56%) on No.4 and 5 respectively. Additionally, the company lists the e-threats Win32.Sality.OG (2.24%), Gen:Variant.Adware.Hotbar.1 (2.23%), Exploit.CplLnk.Gen (2.19%), Win32.Sality.3 (2.00%), and Win32.Worm.DownadupJob.A (1.92%) that occupied the 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th and 10th positions respectively.

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» SPAMfighter News - 2/17/2011