Sophos Revealed the Ongoing Malware Threats

Sophos has come up with some of the prevailing malware threats around the world in July 2007. According to its estimation, the amount of Mal/ObfJS class of Web threats rose from just 1.8% in June 2007 to 17.3% in July 2007. Shockingly, inspite of this huge leap by Mal/ObfJS, it has been unsuccessful in surpassing the Mal/lframe from its top position, which holds almost more than half of all Web threats reported in July 2007.

Both of these threats hold for more than 70% of viruses found in compromised Websites. Mal/lframe opens a small window, generally measuring 1 pixelx1pixel. Through this, other nasty content that seeks to infect Web browsers is let onto a legit Website, stated Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos, as reported by ZD Net Security on July 25, 2007. The experts of Sophos have claimed that the high prevalence of these two threats, i.e., Mal/lframe and Mal/ObjS, highlights the popularity of drive-by download mode with the cyber-terrorists, as well as consistent rise in the use of confused Java Scripts in infected websites.

Head of technology for Asia-Pacific at Sophos, Paul Ducklin, said that the security dangers of the Web are still unknown to many businesses, which is proving beneficial for the hackers on getting access to many private data, as per the reports of Hardware Zone on August 3, 2007.

The research also revealed that China hosts more infected pages than any other nation, with the estimation of half the world's malicious program. On the other hand, US and Russia hold 22% and 15% respectively of all the world's Web threats. This tremendous increment is due to the fact that Mal/ObfJS and Mal/l frame infected Web pages have been exploited to services as drive-by sites.

Senior security consultant at Sophos, Carole Theriault, said that in June 2007, it was Italy who made the top ten but now, Russia has taken this place. He further explained that the attackers don't have any specific locations for hosting malware. They will simply select any vulnerable Web hosts they find, which mean that no nation is immune to threat, as per the news by Secure Computing on August 3, 2007.

Related article: Spike in Attacks Causes Early Release of Windows Patch

» SPAMfighter News - 8/18/2007