PandaLabs Lists E-Threats Affecting Users for Two Decades

In sync with the 20th anniversary of PandaLabs, security experts of the company have released a list of malicious threats which have appeared in last 20 years in order of their threat level.

Holding the first position on the list is Jerusalem or Friday 13. This threat was developed in 1988 in Israel, and made its first appearance in Jerusalem, and allegedly marked Israel's 40th anniversary. Researchers said that the threat would remove all programs running on an infected computer, whenever it was Friday 13.

The second position was bagged by the virus named Barrotes. This was the first famous Spanish virus that emerged in 1993. Once it was on computer system, it would remain concealed until January 5 of any year and then, it would get activated showing just a sequence of straight bars on screen.

At No. 3 on the PandaLabs list stands the Cascade (also known as Falling Letters virus) for the last two decades. Developed in 1997 in Germany, the virus would drop letters on screen of an infected system into a cascade.

The fourth ranked CIH or Chernobyl Virus, developed in Taiwan, took merely a week to spread and infect thousands of PCs when it appeared for the first time in 1998, said security researchers at PandaLabs.

Ranking fifth, Melissa for the first time appeared on March 26, 1999 in the USA. Melissa is designed to contaminate Word 97 documents along with NORMAL.DOT file of Word 97 and Word 2000. It is contained in a macro named "Melissa" and has the potential to propagate via e-mail.

ILoveYou (or Loveletter) virus ranks sixth on the list. This virus appeared in 2000 in Philippines through e-mails with subject line 'I Love You'. It first scans the memory of the infected system for passwords, which are then forwarded to the virus's writer in Philippines.

Klez, appeared in Germany in 2001, stands at the seventh rank. Some other dangerous viruses shortlisted by PandaLabs are Nimda, SQLSlammer, Blaster, Sobig, Bagle, and Netsky.

The last virus listed is Conficker that emerged in November 2008. According to the security experts, Conficker won't affect the system, if the user's keyboard is configured in Ukrainian.

Related article: PandaLabs Report Discusses Movie Trojan and Other Worms

» SPAMfighter News - 9/30/2009