When computer security companies pitch themselves as having the best antivirus software, they confirm their credentials with regular reports on the worst enemies out there.

And to support its claim to provide the best antivirus software, GFI produce a regular report which identifies the worse malware threats for a particular month.

So in the month of August, GFI has identified the most dangerous malware threats, based on information gleaned from their anti-malware solution VIPRE and their antispyware tool, CounterSpy.

And the main conclusion for August is that the same Trojans that have been around for many months now, are still prevalent and attacking people’s computers. GFI note that the top four Trojans that were spotted in July, are the same for August.

The biggest culprit remains Trojan.Win32.Generic!BT which accounted for 25.11% of total detections. Although it accounts for slightly less than in previous months (29.08% in July and 27.16% in June), it remains top of the leader board.

Way behind in second place with 4.23% is Trojan-Spy.Win32.Zbot.gen. This little nasty comes in many versions and its particular skill is stealing passwords.

In third place, accounting for 3.61% of threats, is Trojan.Win32.Generic.pak!cobra, whose claim to fame attacking and infecting 32- and 64-bit Windows installations.

Francis Montesion from GFI said:
“Detections of this malicious code indicate that botnet operators continue to try to infect machines and use them in their spamming networks. Our ThreatNet detections for the month also agree with other reports we’ve heard in the last few weeks that have found a high level of traffic in rogue security products. These are often referred to as scareware. We’re seeing a multitude of detections of the downloaders and installers that are associated with the rogues.

“Our research group is analysing new rogues too, but what we’re seeing through ThreatNet indicates that VIPRE is preventing these rogue downloads.”

The complete top ten malware threats for August, according to GFI, is:
1. Trojan.Win32.Generic!BT 25.11%
2. Trojan-Spy.Win32.Zbot.gen 4.23%
3. Trojan.Win32.Generic.pak!cobra 3.61%
4. INF.Autorun (v) 3.27%
5. Trojan.Win32.Generic!SB.0 2.01%
6. BehavesLike.Win32.Malware (v) 1.04%
7. Worm.Win32.Downad.Gen (v) 0.96%
8. Trojan.Win32.Malware.a 0.93%
9. Trojan.Win32.Meredrop 0.92%
10. Exploit.PDF-JS.Gen (v) 0.84%

Being able to spot such a list of malware threats is a good indication that the company concerned go some way in offering the best antivirus software.

Guest Article by Neil Camp