BitDefender Lab's Top 10 Malware List for November Reveals Trend Toward Lower-Profile Malware

The second spot on November’s malware list is occupied by a host of trojan downloaders belonging to various "families" and detected collectively by BitDefender's B-HAVE behavioral heuristics detection engine under the name BehavesLike.Trojan.Downloader.

Other notable bits of malware on November’s Top 10 list are The Kobcka Trojan, making another episodic appearance at number 8, and a generic detection for malware that uses the recent PDF URI exploit (generally mass mailers) at number 6. The remainder of the top ten is comprised of ancient mass mailer viruses, mostly from the Netsky family.

The trend toward lower-profile malware is apparent on BitDefender’s November Top 10 list as the single most prevalent virus is Netsky.P with only 4.80 percent of total detections.

BitDefender’s November 2007 Top 10 malware list includes:

1. Packer.Malware.NSAnti.J 28.62%
2. BehavesLike:Trojan.Downloader 10.67%
3. Win32.Netsky.P@mm 4.80%
4. Win32.Netsky.AA@mm 1.50%
5. Win32.NetSky.D@mm 1.47%
6. Exploit.PDF-URI.Gen 1.29%
7. Win32.Nyxem.E@mm 1.25%
8. Trojan.Kobcka.AI 0.89%
9. Win32.Netsky.C@mm 0.77%
10. Win32.Netsky.B@mm 0.75%

"The age of high-profile malware outbreaks seems to be over,” said Viorel Canja, head of BitDefender’s Antivirus Lab. “We're entering a new period, where stealthier and much more diversified viruses are the norm, posing even greater challenges to security."

For further details on the latest malware detected in the wild, please visit BitDefender’s Defense Portal site at: http://www.bitdefender.com/site/VirusInfo/realTimeReporting/.

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