Symantec's Top 10 Malicious Threats For August 03

Symantec's Top 10 Malicious Threats For August 2003

Symantec, the world leader in Internet Security, releases monthly intelligence reports which list in order of severity, the most malicious threats in Asia Pacific:

+ GLOBAL TOP TEN THREATS ASIA PACIFIC TOP TEN THREATS

1 W32.Bugbear.B@mm W32.Blaster.Worm

2. W32.Blaster.Worm HTML.Redlof.A

3. W32.Sobig.F@mm W32.Bugbear.B@mm

4. W32.Klez.H@mm W32.Welchia.Worm

5. HTML.Redlof.A W32.Sobig.F@mm

6. W95.Hybris.worm W32.Nolor@mm

7. W32.Welchia.Worm W32.Klez.H@mm

8. W32.Bugbear.B.Dam Backdoor.Roxy

9. W32.Mimail.A@mm W95.Hybris.worm

10. W32.Spybot.Worm W32.Jeefo

According to Symantec Security Response, Asia Pacific, analysis of the August data: August was a huge month for new malicious threats, many of which feature in the Top Ten Threat list. This is the first time that the Internet community has had to deal with four Category 3 or 4 worms in the space of eight days. First it was Blaster, then Welchia, then Dumaru, and finally Sobig.F. At the time of the recent outbreaks:

· Symantec handled 1.1 million LiveUpdate sessions in one hour
· Maximum transmission bandwidth was 6 Gigabytes per second
· The Symantec web site handled more than 3 million hits per hour at the peak

Blaster and Welchia, two prominent threats this month, exploited the same Microsoft vulnerability (DCOM RPC). It is interesting to note that Bugbear.B, discovered in June this year, is still the number one threat at the top of the Global list and also exploited a known vulnerability (Incorrect MIME Header Can Cause IE to Execute E-mail Attachment http://www.microsoft.com/technet/treeview/default.asp?url=/technet/security/bulletin/MS01-020.asp). This trend in exploiting vulnerabilities has reinforced to internet users the need to keep their security patches up to date. For protection at the desktop users should ensure they have a firewall and update their antivirus definitions to ensure that they are protected from these threats.

Consumers can visit Symantec's Security Check to find out if there systems still have these threats on their PC's at: http://www.symantec.com/securitycheck/

For further information regarding these threats, please visit the Symantec Security Response: http://securityresponse.symantec.com/

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