Once again, Panda Software has released its annual list of those nasty codes. Gladly there were no Code Reds in the group. None of them were brutal enough to have caused any serious epidemics. But without further excitement, here are this year's 'winners':
*The most moralistic -- This award goes to the spyware Zcodec which, among other actions, checks if users access certain web pages with porn content. This may just be a way of finding out whether the user is a regular visitor to these types of pages in order to send adapted spam. On the other hand, maybe the author of this spyware just has voyeuristic inclination.
*The worst job applicant -- The Eliles.A worm sends out CVs to everybody. It even sends them out to users' cell phones. It would seem that it has little self-confidence in its own job forecast.
*The most sensationalist -- Sensational banners have always made an impact; now they are even being used by viruses. Of all those that appeared in 2006, Nuwar.A wins hands down with its announcement of the start of the Third World War.
*The most tenacious -- They say that all good things come to an end. It's a pity that the creators of the Spamta worms haven't heard the proverb. Otherwise, they might have stopped sending wave after wave of almost identical variants of this malicious code.
*The most competitive -- Once the Popuper spyware has installed itself on a workstation, it runs a pirated version of a well-known antivirus application. Far from trying to do the user a good deed, it is actually trying to get rid of any possible competitor from the computer. It seems that the fight for domination has also reached the world of Internet threats.
*The most diligent -- In general, phishing messages are aimed at gathering private information such as credit card numbers or account access details in order to steal money. However, this isn't the case with BarcPhish.HTML, which goes much further, collecting information including expiry dates, CVVs (Card Verification Value), last names, membership numbers, five-digit codes, account numbers, etc. No doubt the creator was thinking "better too much than too little."
*The biggest snooper -- In this case, it was not a hard choice. WebMic.A is a malicious code that can record sounds and images, using a microphone and WebCam connected to the computer. Of course this is not the sort of unwelcome guest you would like to have on your PC.
*The most mischievous -- Nedro.B is a worm that seems to get bored stiff after it has infected a computer. Maybe that's why it decides to change icons, prevent access to tools, hide file extensions, delete options from the Start menu... and basically cause chaos. Perhaps this seems amusing to someone, but it certainly isn't for the users.
*The most chaste -- Malicious codes that spread across P2P networks use tempting filenames in order to get users to download them willingly on to their computers. For this reason, many of these names have pornographic suggestion. However, among the more than 37,000 different names used by FormShared.A, none of them make any reference to sex. That's some kind of record.
*The most archaic -- Seemingly there are still some retro virus creators around. Whoever created the DarkFloppy.A worm seem not to have heard of e-mail, instant messaging or P2P systems, as the spread method they've chosen to spread this malicious code is --- floppy disks.
*The most promiscuous -- This title goes without a doubt to Gatt.A. This malicious code can infect any platform that it is run on: Windows, Linux, etc.
*The most deceitful -- SafetyBar apparently offers security information and anti-spyware downloads. However, the problem is that once downloaded, these programs then warn the user that the computer is infected by non-existent threats.
Panda Software recommends users to make sure they have dependable anti-virus software installed and kept up-to-date daily.
|
