Trojans dominated the top ten e–threats for September according to a top security software company.

BitDefender, creator of one of the industry’s fastest and most effective lines of internationally certified security software, produce a table of malware that represents the biggest threat on a month to month basis.

And in number one spot for September is the Trojan.Clicker.CM. The reason for this, ponder BitDefender, may be due to Tojan.Clicker’s popularity as a weapon of choice amongst purveyors of "warez." This a term used by malware developers to describe compromised software.

In second place is Trojan.AutorunINF.Gen and this is a generic detection for Trojans that use Autorun. Number three spot in this line-up of nasties goes to the Trojan.Wimad.Gen.1.

The infamous Conficker is never far away from any malware list and in this particular chart it occupies the fourth slot. BitDefender labels Conficker, in all its various guises, as Win32.Worm.Downadup.Gen.

At number five is an exploit which uses a vulnerability in the way some versions of the Adobe PDF reader parse embedded JavaScript is gaining popularity again. Exploit.PDF-JS.Gen is one to be careful of.

Trojan.Exploit.JS.Y slots into the number six position. It’s a malicious piece of JavaScript, usually found on compromised or malicious websites.

In the number seven spot, down from number five, and a long-time star of the BitDefender’s Top 10 E-Threat is Win32.Sality.OG. It’s an encrypted, polymorphic file infector and appears set for a very long cybercrime "career".

In the eight and nine slots are two threats which use the Autorun security loophole found in older versions of Windows. BitDefender point out that the lower-spreading of the two threats is actually a downloader component used to spread the ever-present Conficker, or Kido worm (aka Downadup).

Bringing up the rear in tenth is Trojan.Skintrim.HTML.A, a type of HTML page usually found associated with adware programs such as Navipromo.

BitDefender’s September 2009 Top 10 E-Threat list is made up of:

1. Trojan.Clicker.CM 10.98%
2. Trojan.AutorunINF.Gen 9.58%
3. Trojan.Wimad.Gen.1 5.52%
4. Win32.Worm.Downadup.Gen 4.68%
5. Exploit.PDF-JS.Gen 4.09%
6. Trojan.Exploit.JS.Y 3.44%
7. Win32.Sality.OG 2.75%
8. Trojan.Autorun.AET 2.27%
9. Worm.Autorun.VHG 1.78%
10. Trojan.Skintrim.HTML.A 1.49%
11. Others 53.41%

Guest Article by Neil Camp