Kaspersky Lab has released its Monthly Malware Statistics detailing which malicious programs were detected and blocked by the company’s solutions during May.
Kaspersky Lab, a leading developer of secure content management solutions, has released its Monthly Malware Statistics detailing which malicious programs were detected and blocked by the company’s solutions during May.
Exploits – dedicated programs designed to attack computers via vulnerabilities in legitimate software – and their Trojan counterparts dominated not only the Top Twenty rating for malware detected on users’ computers, but the Internet-borne malware rating too.
In recent months both these rankings have shown a marked increase in the use of exploits by cybercriminals. Their goal remains the same – the theft of confidential user data – but the propagation techniques and methods that prevent the analysis and detection of malware have varied.
One entry of note in the end-user Top Twenty malware list was a Trojan that steals account logins and passwords for popular online games. Players of CabalOnline, Metin2, Mu Online and various games developed by Nexon.net have all been affected by Trojan-GameThief.Win32.Magania.dbtv.
Eleven of May’s Internet malware Top Twenty are exploits of one sort or another and their accompanying Trojan sidekicks. These malicious programs occupy five consecutive Top Twenty places starting from 2nd place and then appear on the list in groups of two or three. Three of the newcomers are exploits for Java and users of this platform are strongly advised to check for software updates on a regular basis.
First place on the Internet malware Top Twenty goes to Trojan-Clicker.JS.Iframe.bb. This particular piece of malware is designed to increase website hit counts by making the victim computers visit them without the users’ knowledge or consent. In May alone this Trojan infected almost 400,000 websites.
The full version of Kaspersky Lab’s Monthly Malware Statistics for May can be found at www.securelist.com/en.
