The number of new viruses in circulation increased in 2004 after three years of declines, anti-virus software company McAfee reports. The firm says about 50 new viruses were discovered every day during the first half of the year.
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 The number of new viruses released into the wild increased in 2004 after three consecutive years of decline, according to U.S. anti-virus software company McAfee.McAfee’s Avert anti-virus and vulnerability emergency response team warned that bots and mass-mailers are expected to remain the predominant methods by which virus writers attack enterprises in 2005.In addition, Avert predicted that exploits and adware will account for over 60 percent of curity problems for home users.”An exploit is a global term for malicious code that takes advantage of a vulnerability in software, such as Microsoft’s Internet Explorer,” explained Craig Schmuger, virus research manager at Avert. “The exploit will execute a second piece of software, which could be adware or spyware.”Adware on the Increase Avert warned that adware and unwanted content transmitted via e-mail and the Web will continue to increase in 2005, with programs becoming increasingly complex. The threats will be combined with spam and phishing attacks as 2005 progresses.”It is anticipated that successful phishing schemes will continue to increase throughout 2005 due to a general lack of consumer awareness,” Avert says in a statement.”Additionally, the number of exploits that attack [known] vulnerabilities will increase as more are discovered and disclosed.” Dramatic Increase Virus attacks reaching a “medium” or higher risk assessment dramatically increased in 2004 compared to 2003, Avert said.Avert has assessed 46 threats as a “medium” or higher risk compared to 2003’s total of 20 threats reaching that same risk level. Most of this was due to the Netsky/Bagle war that consumed most of the first quarter of 2004. New Viruses Around 50 new viruses — of varying risk assessments — were discovered every day during the first half of 2004. By the end of 2004, detection for 17,000 new malware threats were added to Avert’s database.According to Avert, the top 10 threats in 2004 fell into one of the following key areas: spyware/adware; email-borne viruses; and malware delivered by spam. The top threats for 2004 in alphabetical order are Adware-180 Adware-Gator Exploit-Byte VerifyExploit-MhtRedir JS/Noclose W32/Bagle W32/Mydoom W32/Netsky W32/Sasser W32/Sdbot (family including Sdbot, Gaobot, Polybot, Spybot) Vulnerable Systems Threats using vulnerable systems in 2004 totaled more than 380, exceeding 2003 totals by approximately 50 percent, Avert said. This number will grow due to hackers’ continuing interest in exploiting unpatched home systems, the firm predicts.”In 2004, the rise in viruses, worms, phishing, adware and vulnerability exploitation has surpassed what was noted in 2003,” Vincent Gullotto, vice president of Avert, says in a statement.”Although we saw a steady 5 percent year-over-year decrease in the rate of virus production from 2000 to 2003, we have seen an increase in 2004, which can be partly attributed to the Bagle and Netsky authors feuding, as well as a general lack of awareness in regard to adware and other such programs.” 7,000 Bots McAfee researchers estimate that there are more than 7,000 bots in existence today, growing at a rate of about 150 to 200 per week. A bot is an automated program that answers to commands from another source.The anti-virus company said that some bots are less pervasive than others, but warned of a recent trend toward bots that download adware onto a user’s system. These programs also have the ability to propagate quickly on the compromised PC.”Like any evolving security threat, the writers of these intrusive programs continue to develop new variants that propagate on systems that do not have proactive protection against buffer overflows,” Avert says in a statement. “Proactive generic protection is becoming imperative.”Avert also says that spyware and adware are becoming an increasing concern, with an average of at least 13 adware components found on every computer. |
