Phishing Viruses, the Greatest Threat in Jan-June 2007

Chinese anti-virus software firm, Kingsoft has published its 'China computer virus Epidemic and Internet Security Report' for the first six months of 2007.

Kingsoft and Jiangmin, the two Chinese anti-virus software makers released statistics in first week of July that suggest that computer viruses infected nearly 21.7 million Chinese PCs during January-June 2007.

According to the report, viruses helping in phishing activities were the most harmful threats in the first half of 2007. They accounted for 76.04% of all trojans that numbered to 58,245. For instance, the virus dubbed Worm.WhBoy downloads large volumes of phishing viruses that would steal game or online bank account usernames and passwords.

Jiangmin declared on July 5, 2007 that viruses leapt to 221 percent during the first six months of 2007 over the same months in 2006. The company detected 73,972 new viruses that infected about 14,081,895 PCs in that period.

According to Jiangmin's rankings the top ten viruses in its list are: Exploit ANIfile, hecker/Autorun, Worm/Viking, ARP virus, Trojan/Agent, Trojan/PSW.GamePass, Adware/Clicker, Adware/Boran, TrojanDownloader, and TrojanDownloader.JS.IstBar.

Meanwhile Kingsoft declared on July 4, 2007 that viruses increased by 23 percent in the first half of 2007 over the same period in 2006. The company detected 111,474 new kinds of viruses that infected 7,596,719 PCs in that time span.

Kingsoft also noted that trojans constituted 68.7 percent of total infections. Of these 76.04 percent of trojans attacked online game accounts. At the same time Web-based trojans attacked explosively.

Kingsoft, in its report has pointed at an interesting development that of diminishing malware with increasing anti-virus campaigns, propaganda and inputs from software developers. The company found malware accounting to just 3.51 percent of total viruses in the first half of 2007.

A review of the Internet security during January-June 2007 indicated that cheating and theft continue to be the main threats, said anti-virus expert Dai Guangjian. With this, professional virus creators are using number-stealing trojans as the tools to design their craft.

Kingsoft reported that on the basis of government statistics in the period spanning January-May 2007, hackers remained successful in attacking the main sites about 34,331 times, the highest frequency ever recorded.

Related article: Phishing With A Redirector Code

» SPAMfighter News - 7/19/2007