Spain: The virus yearbook 2006
We have published a list of those malicious codes which have stood out in one way or another in 2006:
- The most moralistic. This award goes to the spyware Zcodec which, among other actions, monitors whether users access certain web pages with pornographic content. This may simply be a way of determining whether the user is a frequent visitor to these types of pages in order to send personalized advertising. On the other hand, perhaps the author of the spyware just has voyeuristic tendencies.
- The worst job applicant. The Eliles.A worm sends out CVs all over the place. It even sends them out to users’ cell phones. It would seem that it has little confidence in its own job prospects.
- The most sensationalist. Sensational headlines have always made an impact, now they are even being used by viruses. Of all those that appeared in 2006, Nuwar.A wins hands down with its declaration of the start of the Third World War.
- The most tenacious. They say that all good things come to an end. It's a shame that the creators of the Spamta worms haven’t heard the saying. Otherwise, they might have stopped sending wave after wave of almost identical variants of this malicious code.
- The biggest snooper. In this case, it was not a difficult choice. WebMic.A is a malicious code that can record sounds and images, using a microphone and WebCam connected to the computer. Of course this is not the sort of uninvited guest you would like to have on your PC.
- The most mischievous. Nedro.B is a worm that seems to get bored after it has infected a computer. Perhaps that's why it decides to change icons, prevent access to tools, hide file extensions, delete options from the Start menu... and basically cause chaos. Maybe this seems entertaining to someone, but it certainly isn't for the users.
- The most chaste. Malicious codes that spread across P2P networks use enticing filenames in order to get users to download them voluntarily on to their computers. For this reason, many of these names have pornographic connotations. However, among the more than 37,000 different names used by FormShared.A, none of them make any reference to sex. That’s some kind of record.
Even though some of these may seem interesting, or even fun, users should steer well clear of the threats mentioned above or any others.
