Mytob on top, August charts

Date: September 05, 2005
Source: Vnunet.com
By: Iain Thomson

Security vendors are now reporting on the August virus figures, and it looks as though Mytob has topped all the charts.

Mytob variants accounted for over half of the virus infections found in August. The author of the original worm is thought to be one of the men arrested over the release of the Zotob worm.

"Mytob and Zotob may spread in different ways, but the source code is very similar," said Carole Theriault, security consultant at Sophos.

"Moreover, the Zotob author's nickname, Diabl0, appears in more than 20 of the Mytob variants, suggesting that they may have been created by the same person.

"One thing is for sure: Mytob is still causing chaos in organisations that have not updated their virus protection and patched software vulnerabilities."

The Zotob worm itself seems to have caused little damage, and does not appear in any of the virus charts.

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