The Most Prevalent Viruses For January 2002

Wayne N. Kawamoto
Managing Editor, www.smallbusinesscomputing.com

Central Command, a provider of PC anti-virus software and computer security services released its monthly listing of the top twelve viruses reported for January 2002. The report, coined the “Dirty Dozen”, is based on the number of virus occurrences confirmed through Central Command’s Emergency Virus
Response Team.

The list below represents the most prevalent viruses for January 2002, number one being the most frequent.

Ranking, Virus Name, Percentage

1. Worm/MyParty 21.0%

2. I-Worm.Badtrans.B 19.9%

3. I-Worm.Sircam.A 15.5%

4. Win32.Nimda.A@mm 9.5%

5. Win32.Magistr.A@mm 5.7%

6. Win32.Magistr.B@mm 4.8%

7. Win32.Funlove.4099 2.3%

8. I-Worm.Hybris.B 2.0%

9. Win32.Goner.A@mm 2.0%

10. Win32.Nimda.E@mm 1.8%

11. Win95.CIH 1.4%

12. Win32.Gokar.A@mm 1.3%

Others 12.8%

Even with the end of the month Worm/MyParty outbreak, a worm that disguised itself as a legitimate Yahoo! website, the company says that the month of January was mild.

Some notable viruses for the month include; Worm/Led, a mass mailing Internet worm appearing as, among other things, a “Yo momma joke generator” and Worm/MyParty.C, a slight variation of
Worm/MyParty carrying the renamed attachment, “myparty.photos.yahoo.com”.

“The good news here is that total infection reports were down 43% from last month,” said Steven Sundermeier, product manager at Central Command, Inc. “The bad news is that they were still up over 25% from January, 2001.”