Zafi-D Worm Tops January Virus Charts

After spending the better part of a year as the most prolific piece of malware in the Wild, Netsky-P has been unseated. Zafi-D has more than twice the exposure and for the second month in a row, sits at the head of the Top 10 Virus List.

''The Zafi-D worm managed to maintain the top position on the chart for the second consecutive month, accounting for nearly half of all reports in January, 2005,'' says Gregg Mastoras, senior security analyst at Sophos, Inc. ''Despite the holiday season being behind us, many continued to open the email perhaps thinking it was a belated holiday greeting.''

Zafi-D easily gained the top spot on Sophos' January list, accounting for 44 percent of all the malware circulating on the Internet last month. Netsky-P, which dominated the chart throughout most of last year, dropped to a distant second once again, accounting for only 19.4 percent.

Rounding out the top 10 list are: Zafi-B with 10.1 percent; Sober-I with 6.3 percent; Netsky-D 3.2 percent; Netsky-Z with 3.1 percent; Bagle-AA with 2.1 percent; Netsky-B with 1.9 percent; MyDoom-O with 1.2 percent and Netsky-C with 1.1 percent.

Despite sitting in second place, Netsky-P remains a problem, according to Sophos analysts.

''Netsky-P was still a pest to many users in January, despite the fact that protection against this worm has been available since March, 2004,'' says Mastoras. ''Many organizations are probably protected at this point, but for those who are still getting hit, they need to protect their gateway at all times with automatic virus updates.''

Sophos researches report that they analyzed 1,329 new viruses in January, bringing the malware total to 99,829.