BitDefender reports Storm Worm is Back in Action

PRLog (Press Release) – Apr 02, 2008 – Top ten malware for March lists BehavesLike:Trojan.ShellHook as currently most widespread technique.

BitDefender reports that a massive resurgence of Peed (aka Storm Worm) trojan has dominated its March 2008 Top Ten Malware list. Variants of this trojan accounted for more than half of the total malware detected last month.

Although the Storm Worm topped the list, the most widespread malware technique, ranked number 3, was detected by BitDefender as BehavesLike:Trojan.ShellHook, a technique which causes a malicious program to launch, when the user initially starts a legitimate program.

"This is a convenient way to run a piece of malware, enabling user privileges but without user interaction," explained Sorin Dudea, Head of BitDefender AV Research. "It's not very stealthy, but it is a common characteristic shared by various types of malware these days. However, it is one that has few, if any, legitimate uses."

The rest of the top is taken up mostly with ancient but resilient mass mailers:

BitDefender’s March 2008 Top 10 malware list includes:

1.    Trojan.Peed.Gen     55.58%
2.    Win32.Netsky.P@mm     5.97%
3.    BehavesLike:Trojan.ShellHook     2.07%
4.    Win32.NetSky.D@mm     1.76%
5.    Win32.Netsky.AA@mm     1.54%
6.    Win32.Nyxem.E@mm     1.22%
7.    Win32.Netsky.B@mm     1.07%
8.    Win32.Netsky.C@mm     1.03%
9.    Trojan.Kobcka.CZ     0.83%
10.    Win32.Mydoom.M@mm 0.72%
11.    OTHERS     28.21%



For further details on the latest malware detected in the wild, please visit BitDefender’s Defense Portal site.



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