BitDefender - September 2008 Witnesses More Web Threats Than Usual

According to BitDefender, Web-based electronic threats dominated the list of top ten online threats during September 2008.

Moreover, the catalogue of top ten e-threats included at least three variants of the Wimad Trojan, a phony codec downloader that is often found on malware-infected Websites.

Also, Wimad is disseminated with the help of several interconnected malicious Websites. The extent of these sites has made it a highly common internet threat in recent days. All the versions of Wimad that formed BitDefender's top ten electronic threats together account for nearly 18% of all infected files that BitDefender blocked.

Furthermore, the most common adware Trojan.Clicker.CM came at second spot in September 2008. It is installed on the system to display pop-up advertisements while accessing malicious Websites. And to successfully exhibit these pop-ups, the Trojan is designed to evade the Norton Internet Security Pop-up Blocker.

Additionally, BitDefender's list of malware has Trojan FakeAlert with its variants at the 5th, 6th and 7th positions. This program is a fake anti-virus that shows a fake system scan as well as misleading results to encourage the end-user to buy the bogus security software. The Trojan and its variants are distributed through file-sharing networks and Websites, and also through a collection of 'dedicated' sites, inter-connected in a network.

Furthermore, appearing at the last position with only 1.40% of the overall detection in September 2008 is Trojan.HTML.Zlob.AE. This malware is actually a gateway to malicious applications - the Web page serving malware detected by BitDefender as malevolent and blocked. It is likely that because of this strategy, the real Zlob Trojan could not make its appearance on the September 2008 Top Ten.

Sorin Dudea, Head of anti-virus Lab for BitDefender, said that it has been an unusually quiet summer overall. While the rush of new threats and their variants continues undiminished, the most prevalent would possibly stay; therefore, there was relatively static e-threat landscape over the months. Dudea finally said that it appears Web threats are the latest mass mailers by infection strategies and prevalence concerned, as reported by DarkReading on October 13, 2008.

Related article: BitDefender Releases March Malware List

» SPAMfighter News - 10/20/2008