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Kaspersky Online Scanner Is "Most Unusual"
Doug Caverly
Staff Writer
2006-09-01
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The latest online scanner Top Twenty from Kaspersky Lab showed several surprising trends - Alexander Kostev described it as "the most unusual we have seen since we started keeping records." Thirteen of the entries were brand new to the list.
"On the one hand, it bucks the trends which we been seeing lately," Kostev noted. "On the other hand, it contains a large number of malicious programs which have not previously make it into the online rankings, but which are worth taking a closer look at."
Mydoom, NetSky.q, and Nyxem.e were the top three among the Top Twenty. "Nyxem.e has experienced a rebirth over the last few months," Kostev wrote. "We noticed its increased presence in mail traffic, meaning that it would merely be a matter of time before it appeared in the online statistics."
Kostev described the next six entries as "a mixture of dangerous recent malicious programs, viruses which first appeared several years ago, and veteran malware which is unable to function on modern operating systems," noting that "Horst.av is undoubtedly currently one of the most serious threats to users."
Backdoor.IRC.Zapchast was fifth, and apparently warranted special mention. Kaspersky Lab "first . . . detected Zapchast back in 2002. Since then the number of known variants has risen to over one thousand," Kostev stated. "It seems likely that one of these variants caused a local epidemic in August 2006, explaining this program's presence in the rankings."
One last item worth noting is "the presence of Ramen, a Linux worm, in 16th place," which Kostev described as "strange." "Although it's the most widespread malicious program for Linux, we've never seen in it such numbers before," he wrote. Ramen's rise in the rankings probably isn't going to make Tux happy.
Tag: Online scanner
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About the Author:
Doug is a staff writer for SecurityProNews, InternetFinancialNews, SearchNewz, and WebProNews.
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