Stration Worm Make Way To October Top 10 Malware List

The report has been compiled from Sophos' global network of surveillance stations. It shows that Netsky-P has been the most prevalent malware in circulation. The Stratio worm variants (popularly known as Warezov or Stration) have made an entry into the list of top tens for the first time. During October, thousands of the worm variants were distributed. Sometimes it accounted for over 50% of the total malware reported.

Stration is a worm that mails in bulk and affect systems running Window operating system of Microsoft Corp. When a user opens a worm-infected attachment in e-mail, the worm replicates itself and distributes its copies in the other mail Ids present in the computer. The code then gains capability to download its new versions as early as every thirty minutes from a group of Websites.

Senior security consultant of Sophos, Carole Theriault, said that those users who have not updated or installed anti-malware programs remain the most susceptible targets. If oldies like Netsky-P and Mytob could get through the users' defense system, then it is for sure that new malware would also do it. So one should ask whether the awareness campaign, such as 'Get Safe Online' really have an impact? There are still no evidences that these campaigns have actually connected with the public.

She further said that Stratio could make it to the top ten lists because it employed several social engineering tricks and was distributed aggressively.

Experts noted that on the first anniversary of 'Get Safe Online' campaign (it is the national campaign of UK to raise awareness regarding leaving systems unprotected online), the established worms like Mytob, Zafi and Netsky continue to trouble net users, despite the fact that protection is available since a long time.

The pirated email proportion remains low at 1 in every 300 (0.34%) while Sophos identified 3076 new threats during October, bringing the overall number of malware protected to 193821.

Related article: Stration Worm Pretends to be Security Patch

» SPAMfighter News - 11/2/2006