NA lists top 10 viruses in 2002

2002 has been a bumper year for viruses. With the close of year, it is time to look back and examine which viruses did what

and to whom. 

Anti-virus vendor, Network Associates has put together a list of top 10 viruses that played havoc with computer users around

the world. The findings are based on the updates provided by NA's anti-virus research division -

Anti-Virus Emergency Response Team (AVERT).

According AVERT update, this year, every virus that made it onto the top 10 list was a Windows infector. This is a

continuation of the trend that NA has been seeing for the past 18-24 months.

On an average this year, 75 per cent of all submissions to AVERT were mass-mailing Windows infectors and NA expects this

trend to continue or increase.

There are a couple of very positive indicators to note about this year's List: 

Of the top ten viruses this year, only Klez.h was given a high risk assessment by AVERT, and only for the home user market.

Additionally, 50 per cent of the viruses on the list first appeared in 2001. This tells us that corporate customers are doing a

much better job of protecting their environments through active virus defense and through

diligent updating, policy management, and compliance tracking.

However, home users still have some way to go as they were the main reason those 2001 viruses remained on this year's list.

The following is the official AVERT top 10 list. This is in NO particular order (other than alphabetic) and reflects what we

have seen: Badtrans.b;

Bugbear.a; Elkern.c; Exploit-MIME.gen; Hybris (fam); Klez.h; Magistr (fam); 

Nimda.a; SirCam.a and Yaha.g.



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