Beware of mobile viruses: McAfee

BANGALORE: McAfee AVERT, McAfee's Anti-virus and Vulnerability Emergency Response Team, has reported that mobile viruses, phishing and exploited vulnerabilities are the predominant threats affecting consumers and enterprises alike. It has also noted a steady increase in Trojans and 'BOTs while mass mailer viruses taper off.

Vulnerabilities discovered in Q1 2005 totaled more than 1,000, roughly six percent more than in Q1 2004. AVERT has logged more than 200,000 reports of various exploits attacking various vulnerabilities.

"Although we saw a steady decline in the rate of viruses produced from 2000 to 2004, down to a five percent year over year growth, we've seen a 20 percent increase of mailware-related threats between 2004 and 2005. We anticipate that these numbers will stay at the higher rate of growth for the immediate future," stated VP of McAfee AVERT Vincent Gullotto. "In the first quarter of 2005, the rise in unwanted programs has greatly surpassed what was noted in the first quarter of 2004," he added.

The top ten malicious threats in Q1 include Exploit-ByteVerify, Exploit-HelpZonePass, Exploit-MhtRedir, JS/Noclose, StartPage, VBS/Psyme, W32/Mytob, W32/Sdbot (family including sdbot, gaobot, polybot, spybot). In addition, McAfee AVERT also noted that mass-mailers, including those from the Bagle, Netsky and Mydoom families, are widely reported.

The non-malicious threats are commonly referred to as potentially unwanted programs (PUPs) in an enterprise or consumer environment. These threats include Adware-BB, Adware-DFC, Adware-Gator, Adware-Rblast, Adware-180 SearchAssist, Adware-Searchcentrix, Downloader-KL, Downloader-UI, IPSentry.

Over the remainder of 2005 McAfee AVERT expects PUPS would continue to climb, phishing and identity theft would be a rising concern and mobile viruses surface would rise as a serious threat.