January 2006 Virus and Spam Statistics

Ant writes "Commtouch reports the January 2006's virus and spam statistics. Its summary said there were four massive virus attacks (including a multi-wave attack of 7 variants) and the most aggressive attacks penetrated before the average antivirus (AV) solution could even release a signature. The data is based on information continuously gathered by the Commtouch Detection Center, which analyzed more than 2 billion messages from over 130 countries during the month of January 2006..."

Comments

Problematic Signature Release Issue

[wormnet.org]

Not very long ago, when the Kama Sutra (Nyxem.E, MyWife, whatever) worm was released to the world it seemed to take absolutely forever to find anyone with a solution for the removal or even the detection of the thing. I think it was almost a full week before the signatures were widely distributed. Even though this was a attack was very mild (as far as viruses are concerned), what would have been the outcome had this been "the Big One"?

Re:Problematic Signature Release Issue

[Anonymous Coward]

Your post is never going to compile dude. MyWife is supposed to be the first argument of KamaSutra().

Tell me about it.

[MutantHamster]

January was a horrible month for viruses. Take it from me: If you get an email from an Asian Bird, don't open it.

Re:What are the long term trends of spam?

[mctk]

Actually, I do have research that goes back further. Please, post a reply that contains your email address and I'll be sure and send you my spam-research-installer. After clicking "yes" to all of the options, you'll be granted access to a huge database containing thousands of research papers 6arranteed t o maek ur Pennis HU6E!!!!!1!!!111!

ahem, sorry.

This proves antivirus is useless

[J0nne]

If this report proves anything, is that running antivirus software is not good protection. You have to educate users not to open suspicious attachments, not to run IE, and to keep their systems updated (every modern OS does this automatically! Windows also does this since SP2). A firewall and/or NAT router is always a good idea too.

I don't run antivirus (except the occasional ClamWin run if I downloaded something I don't trust completely), and I manage to keep my computer clean just by following the above rules. Antivirus won't protect you from ad/spyware anyway, and these things have become worse than viruses.

If the antivirus vendors can't keep up with new viruses, you might aswell stop paying for antivirus. After all, it won't protect you.

Nice graphics?

[RT Alec]

Pretty graphics, lots of "ooooo" factor. I find that they tell me nothing. This is a trend in the "network security" field:

1. find a subject for which a lot of data can be collected
2. preparing a bunch of colorful charts and graph that don't actualy convey any meaningful information
3. Profit (or at least get mentioned on Slashdot, et al.)

Tufte would be ashamed.

I'm sick of all of these scares.

[kadathseeker]

I wish, after all of this hyping, that we'd get a bug as well written as some of these (you know, that gets into everything and around all defenses) but gets old-school on its victims. None of this pussyfooting around, I mean like copy itself, mailing itself to all of your contacts, and delete everyone's hard drives. Or filling it with beastiality pron. Nasty stuff.

Show these kids what a real virus is about. Put that hype to good use. And make everyone stop acting like EVERY LITTLE BUG IS A RIDER OF THE APOCALYPSE. Because most of these, like even the Sober worm, aren't really that harmful. Most malware writers are really only out for money, not general misanthropia. I just want ONE killer bug to put all of this in perspective. And maybe get people to switch to a modern OS like Linus, BSD, or OS X.

Because no, not even Norton can save you.