BitDefender Announces January List of Top Ten Malware Threats

On February 3, 2010, BitDefender announced its list of ten most prevalent e-threats for January 2010, highlighting that among the total threats, six are Trojans.

First and foremost on the list is Trojan.Clicker.CM, accounting for 8.30% of all infections. This Trojan is primarily seen on websites that share content, like "warez" communities, torrent portals and other websites supporting pirated material.

Further, Trojan Clicker represents a tiny code that forcefully introduces ads into the Web-browser. Some of these ads may relate to free Internet games, while others may download pornography or any inappropriate content on the user's computer.

The second malware on BitDefender's Top 10 List is Trojan.AutorunInf.Gen, accounting for 8.17% of all infections. This Trojan is generic in nature and disseminates malicious programs through detachable devices like memory cards, exterior hard-disk drives, or flash drives.

Although these detachable equipments help to transport data easily, they can also damage the PC if used recklessly. The sources through which their infections can spread most are public hotspots like Internet cafes; copy shops; and libraries.

Ranking third on the January e-threats list is Win32.Worm.Downadup.Gen, which caused 6.18% of the total infections. This worm exploits the Remote Code Execution flaw in Remote Procedure Call (RPC) of Microsoft's Windows Server Service, to spread itself from one computer to another within the network. Consequently, it blocks users from accessing security websites and Windows Update.

The fourth e-threat, according to BitDefender, is Exploit.PDF-JS.Gen, which caused 5.76% of all infections during January 2010. This generic exploit handles corrupt PDF files, and abuse different security flaws within the JavaScript engine of Adobe PDF Reader to run malware on users' systems.

Coming fifth on the list is Trojan.Wimad.Gen.1 with infection rate at 4.30%. This Trojan mainly appears on Torrent portals masked as a popular show's episode, which hasn't yet been telecasted. These bogus movie files manage to link up with a particular URL and pretending to be a necessary codec to run the movies, they download malware.

Apart from these 5 e-threats, the others listed are Win32.Sality.OG (2.73%), Trojan.Autorun.AET (2.01%), Worm.Autorun.VHG (1.69%), Trojan.JS.QAF (1.40%) and Trojan.Script.254568 (1.40%).

Related article: BitDefender Releases March Malware List

» SPAMfighter News - 2/10/2010