Archive notice: This article was originally published on April 1, 2008. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
Among other things — and this is extremely pleasing — the Trojan downloader Diehard also dropped out of the monthly statistics. Of the more than 150 modifications of this malware discovered in recent months, five had most recently made it into our ranking. Everything pointed to preparations for creating a gigantic botnet,but suddenly the Diehard mailings stopped. Only next month will reveal whether the ground for the botnet has already been prepared.
Meanwhile, the long-familiar NetSky.q continues to lead the ranking. Mydoom.m climbed nine places to take second place. The last time these two worms competed so closely was in 2004. Only Mytob.t gained even more ground last month: it moved up ten places and landed in fifth place. Mytob is also a representative of the worm generation of 2004 and 2005.
The only more or less “new” piece of malware in the statistics is Small.hsl, once again a downloader. It first appeared in the ranking in February and went straight into fifth place. In March, it moved up another place. Its potential may not yet be fully exhausted.
All representatives of the Zhelatin (Storm Worm) and Warezov families have disappeared from the Top 20. Nyxem.e has reached the next stage of development and dropped ten places this time. In the absence of new arrivals in the ranking, the NetSky family once again dominates the scene: three of last month’s five “returnees” belong to this family.
Overall, March 2008 proved to be a rather quiet month. But, as always in such cases, it is unclear whether this is merely the calm before the next storm.
The remaining malicious programs active in email traffic account for a not insignificant 3.36 percent of the total number of malicious programs intercepted.
The Top 20 countries of origin for infected emails in March 2008 are as follows:
1 – USA 13,16
2 +2 CHINA (mainland) 9,19
3 – INDIA 6,36
4 -2 REPUBLIC OF KOREA 6,17
5 – GREAT BRITAIN 5,44
6 – GERMANY 4,45
7 – SPAIN 4,15
8 +1 BRAZIL 2,88
9 +2 FRANCE 2,55
10 +3 ITALY 2,53
11 -1 JAPAN 2,24
12 -4 POLAND 2,11
13 +1 RUSSIAN FEDERATION 1,88
14 +2 AUSTRALIA 1,64
15 -3 TURKEY 1,59
16 +4 UNITED ARAB EMIRATES 1,37
17 – CANADA 1,33
18 New TAIWAN 1,23
19 -1 NETHERLANDS 1,20
20 New MALAYSIA 1.18
