Kaspersky Released Top 20 Ad Programs List for April 2009

Online security company, Kaspersky, has recently released the list of 20 most widespread malicious ad programs by the number of systems in which they were discovered.

The list reveals that Net-Worm.Win32.Kido.ih and Virus.Win32.Sality.aa were the most active web viruses during April 2009.

These two viruses acquired the 1st and 2nd place respectively in the list of top twenty. In March 2009, these two viruses had been holding the same positions. Trojan-Dropper.Win32.Flystud.ko occupied the 3rd place in the list.

Moreover, the list also contains two new viruses named Exploit.HTML.CodeBaseExec (placed at ninth position) and Virus.Win32.Virut.ce (placed at twelfth position).

Security experts further disclose that new variants of the virus Virut.ce are emerging daily, which indicate that hackers are examining when and how the malware is found by antivirus software and are trying to expand the size of botnet made up of infected systems. The epidemic emerged by this malware is increasing by leaps and bounds, and May 2009 will witness Virut.ce gaining impetus.

The second debutante Exploit.HTML.CodeBaseExec makes use of a flaw in versions 5.5, 6.0 and 5.01of Internet Explorer. It appears that hackers are expecting that a large number of people have not downloaded the important security updates and are still using earlier versions of Internet Explorer.

Interestingly, Trojan.Win32.Chifrax.a (placed at fourth position), which left the ranking in October 2008, has now come back and straightaway reached the fourth position.

Moreover, the ranking of April comprises of two different script downloaders- Exploit.JS.Agent.agc and Trojan.JS.Agent.xy. They are the best examples of programs utilized to perform drive-by downloads. These two acquires the 13th and 19th position respectively in the top twenty lists.

As per Kaspersky, a sum of 45190 exclusive harmful ads, malicious codes and unsolicited programs were found on users' systems in April 2009. These figures were exactly the same as it was recorded in March 2009.

For now, Kaspersky's security researchers state that cyber crime is rising at a rapid speed. And it is professed that malware will continue to grow, malware technologies will become more advanced and there will be a rise in threats like botnets which have flexible management.

Related article: Kaspersky Released Malware Statistics for September 2008

» SPAMfighter News - 5/8/2009