Fortinet's top 10
ConvergenceAsia staff
06/06/2007

Fortinet, a provider of unified threat management (UTM) solutions has announced the top 10 most reported high-risk threats for May 2007.

The report, by Fortinet Global Security Research Team, is compiled from all FortiGate multi-threat security systems in production worldwide.

May 2007's top 10 threats, as determined by the degree of prevalence are:

Fortinet threat researchers reported a strong surge of W32/Dialer.PZ!tr in May. This marked the first time that a malware threat resulting from the combination of a bot and a dialer showed such a high activity, reaching the top position of Fortinet's threat list.

W32/Dialer.PZ!tr is designed to dial premium long distance numbers, however like all bots it may also download, execute and upgrade components. W32/Dialer.PZ!tr was primarily reported throughout Mexico and the United States, with Europe and Africa being the destination locations for the calls.

Fortinet threat researchers believe the introduction of this malware can possibly be linked to the rise of bots and the global DSL-ization of personal Internet connections, which also triggered the extinction of the dialers.

Other notable malware that occurred in May included a resurgence of the well-known mass mailer Sober in the form of W32/Sober.AA@mm, which witnessed the highest amount of activity since January 2006. Additionally, similarly to last month, W32/Stration.JQ was also active, with a large amount of activity occurring during the last part of the month.

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