Fortinet Pinpoints Ten Biggest Threats

The top ten most serious threats in terms of reported cases in September 2007 were put forth on October 1, 2007 by Fortinet, the foremost UTM (Unified Threat Management) solutions provider.

Out in October 1 this year, the report traced the rise of adware threat to nearly twice its earlier volume in August taking the number one spot from its previous fourth place in September.

From the variety of threats identified by Fortinet, an adware toolbar plug-in, CashOn, had its presence in 13.9% of detected threats. The report showed that it doubled its volume in terms of activity as well. CashOn made its debut in Fortinet top 10 in August.

A Fortinet Research Engineer, Derek Manky, considers the CashOn adware damage serious when given the financial implications on a flourishing e-commerce market. Exposure is a must to ensure the profitability of the business, creating an urgent need for a sound seeding strategy. CashOn's dominant seeding gives rise to the speculation that the distribution may have involved more numbers. EARTHTimes on October 1, 2007 referred to it as compensation for hasty execution of the adware spread.

Derek Manky puts forth his view that it could reflect the emergence of another related variant, raising security concerns. It is imperative that users continue to brace themselves with information on these kinds of threats to make sure that they've the required security in place to protect against future outbreaks".

Up next at second place is a mass mailer 'W32/Netsky.P@mm' with a detection percentage of 9.85%. 7.30% detection lands an exploit 'HTML!lframe_CID!exploit' into third place. At fourth place is another exploit, 'W32/ANI07.A!exploit' with 5.04%.

Taking the fifth place is yet another exploit 'HTML/Obscured!exploit' with 5.02% detection, followed at the sixth place by the Trojan 'W32/Dialer.PZ!tr' registering 2.55% threats in detection.

The next four places from seventh to tenth have in the following order, a worm 'W32/Grew.A!worm', a mass mailer 'W32/Bagle.DY@mm', a virus 'W32/Virut.fam' and a Trojan 'W32/Dloader.K!tr' whose percentage detection are 2.49, 2.30, 2.06 and 1.98 respectively.

Korea was identified by Fortinet as the base for 99.8% of the spyware's exploits. A top notch Korean Website domain is home to CashOn posing as a gateway to a plethora of shopping sites for Koreans.

Related article: Fortinet’s Releases its August 2007 List of Top Ten Malware

» SPAMfighter News - 10/22/2007