Kido Still Running Strong

As per Kaspersky's top 20 malware list, revealing adware, malicious programs and potentially unwanted programs detected and sanitized for the first time, numerous fresh malware entered the threat landscape.

The first such entrant is a Kido worm variant Kido.iq, which directly captured the No. 2 spot. This variant of the infamous worm resembles very much to its predecessor, Kido.ir in functionality. It is noted that Kido.ir entered the rankings in September 2009, states Kaspersky Lab.

Another one in the list is GetCodec.s. This malware climbed nine places, infesting twice the number of computers in November 2009.

GetCodec.s apparently proliferates along with P2P-Worm.Win32.Nugg in the same way as GetCodec.r. This virus facilitates downloading of other malware that therefore impose an extra risk on users' PCs.

Next new entrant to be noted is Packed.Win32.Krap.ag. Similar to other variants of the 'Packed' worm family, Krap.ag finds a packing program that packs malicious programs. In this instance, the malicious programs concealed by a regular, modified, packing software are rogue anti-virus applications. That means No.18 spot on the list has been slotted for a rogue anti-virus application.

Back to the rankings, the 19th place goes to a group of trojans that steal online gaming credentials and is called Magania. However, the new variant Magania.ckqi has replaced Magania.cbrt that was at this place in October 2009.

Still one more noticeable trend of the past few months which continued during November 2009, was cyber-criminals' utilization of websites that designed with typical templates, helped to distribute fake anti-virus applications. Online criminals are also increasingly employing polymorphic packers hoping this'll aid packed malware escape detection. Consequently, they think, it won't be further necessary for them to make considerable changes to their malicious programs.

Remarking about the malware list, the Kaspersky researchers stated that during November 2009, the overall threat landscape continued to be the same. Currently, malware is commonly distributed through the strategy of using a combination of malicious code, an exploit and an executable file. Usually, this is the way malicious software crafted to extort money or steal confidential information from end-users is proliferated.

Related article: Kit Offered for Simplified Deployment of phishing Sites

» SPAMfighter News - 12/24/2009