Most popular malware
As a rule PC users are encouraged to constantly update their antivirus software to ensure the best protection against online threats. What is often overlooked or misunderstood is which malicious content the antivirus software is preventing from infecting the system.
The world of malicious software is fast becoming highly organised and well funded. To support this Dr. James Lyne, a long term strategy executive at online security provider Sophos, recently revealed that antivirus firms are now “dealing with a hugely evolved threat”, adding that malware developers are often a step ahead of those trying to prevent it from spreading.
To keep track of which programs are currently the most popular antivirus software developer Kaspersky has released a malware report. The report details which malicious programs have been intercepted by Kaspersky’s service.
The top ten malware programs that are currently online are listed below.
| Position | Name | Number of attempted downloads |
| 1 | Trojan-Downloader.JS.Gumblar.x | 178965 |
| 2 | Exploit.JS.CVE-2010-0806.i | 148721 |
| 3 | Trojan.JS.Redirector.l | 126277 |
| 4 | Trojan-Clicker.JS.Iframe.ea | 102226 |
| 5 | Exploit.JS.Aurora.a | 88196 |
| 6 | Trojan.JS.Agent.aui | 80654 |
| 7 | not-a-virus:AdWare.Win32.Boran.z | 75911 |
| 8 | Trojan.HTML.Fraud.aj | 68809 |
| 9 | Packed.Win32.Krap.as | 64329 |
| 10 | Exploit.JS.CVE-2010-0806.b | 50763 |
According to Kaspersky’s Virus List the most popular malicious program, Net-Worm.Win32.Kido.ir, spreads via local networks and removable storage. The worm disables the system restore function in Windows, blocks access to security websites and allows other malware to infect the system.
According to the report the majority of malware spread across the globe originates from China, Russia and the United States. China is the biggest culprit, accounting for 23% of all malware intercepted by Kaspersky.
Despite urging consumers to frequently update their antivirus software Kaspersky revealed that some users are still too lax in this regard.
“The overall picture remains pretty much unchanged: attacks on users are predominantly Internet-borne and make use of the vulnerabilities that regularly appear in some of the most popular software products. Fortunately, these vulnerabilities are quickly patched by the vendors, but still, too many users fail to install these patches in time,” said Kaspersky.
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