Trojans now outweigh viruses and worms by a rotio of 4:1, compared to 2:1 in the first half of 2005. In addition, the continued dominance of Windows-based threats has prompted Sophos to suggest that many home users should consider switching to Apple Macs, to shield themselves from the malware onslaught. 82% of the new threats that during the first six months of 2006 have been Trojan horses, which cannot spread by themselves and are typically targeted at particular groups of people.
Findings show that the most widespread threat from January to date is the Sober-Z worm, which, at its peak, accounted for one in every thirteen emails. The worm's dominance is evidence of trends moving away from email virus attacks, since Sober-Z maintains a monopoly despite having stopped spreading on 6 January 2006.
The top ten list of malware reported in the first six months of 2006 are shown in the screenshot:
The overall level of malware continues to escalate indicating that spyware, Trojan horses and phishing are now the more favoured methods of attack for cyber criminals. In June 2005, the number of different pieces of malware protected against by Sophos stood at 140,118. A year later, by June 2006, Sophos was identifying and protecting against 180,292 different viruses, spyware, worms, Trojan horses and other malware, as well as adware and other Potentially Unwanted Applications (PUAs).
"The continuing rise of malware will concern many -- the criminals responsible are obviously making money from their code, otherwise they'd give up the game," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos. "It's more vital than ever that all organizations use an integrated security solution to protect against intrusion, as well as blocking known and unknown malware. On top of this, hackers seem happy to primarily target Windows users and not spread their wings to other platforms. It seems likely that Macs will continue to be the safer place for computer users for some time to come - something that home users may wish to consider if they're deliberating about the next computer they should purchase."
The top ten list of malware families in the first six months of 2006 are depicted in the screen cast:
Clagger Trojans have been distributed under the guise of emails from organizations that include Amazon and PayPal. February 2006 saw the first ever Trojan horse, Clagger-G, enter the monthly top ten-malware chart, and the following month, Clagger-I burst in at sixth position.
"These Trojans had to be mass-spammed to millions of email addresses in order to enter the chart, and their prevalence shows that cyber criminals are continually repackaging their malicious code and using spam technology to generate illegitimate income," said Cluley. "However, most perpetrators now opt for smaller, strategically targeted attacks, which are more manageable and have better chances of tricking computer users."
"Criminals are constantly finding new ways to get their hands on some easy cash and now they've stooped to blackmail," continued Cluley. "Given these filthy tactics, it's understandable that authorities are giving out increasingly harsh sentences for crimes of this nature."
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