Mass mailers, trojans the biggest threats

“The gradual change from viruses to trojans on the Top 10 malware lists presents an interesting trend in data security,” commented Viorel Canja, head of BitDefender Labs.

“Although the popularity of mass mailers is slowly receding, variants are still present and pose a very real risk to computer systems used by consumers and small businesses. By constantly detecting and defending against the latest variants of malware before they become a problem, BitDefender continues to demonstrate its commitment to protecting its subscribers.”

The Peed trojan was the top threat to date in 2007, variants of which accounted for more than 30% of all threats detected.

Most popular

According to the report, trojans have proven to be the most popular type of malware to date this year, with a generic behavior-based trojan signature coming in second on the Top 10 list. Behaviour-based trojans are different pieces of malware that behave like trojans, which are detected and blocked proactively before being assigned names and specific signatures. These pro-active behaviour-based detections made up 21.4% of total detections.

Another notable threat detected by BitDefender Labs is the Win32.Sality.M virus, the only true virus to make the list. While the highly-dangerous polymorphic virus spreads using the Bagle mass mailer as one of its vectors, the Bagle virus alone did not make the 2007 list.

BitDefender's Top 10 malware list for 1H 2007 includes:

1. Trojan.Peed.Gen 27.19%

2. BehavesLike:Trojan.Downloader 21.4%
3. Win32.Netsky.P@mm 5.62%
4. Trojan.Peed.A 2.37%
5. Win32.NetSky.D@mm 1.87%
6. Win32.Nyxem.E@mm 1.86%
7. Win32.Sality.M 1.85%
8. GenPack:Trojan.Downloader.Tibs.I 1.33%
9. Trojan.Peed.P 1.30%

10. Win32.Netsky.AA@mm 1.22%