Increase in mass-mailers: Fortinet

There was an increase in the number of mass mailing worms last month, according to a report from one security company.

There was an increase in the number of mass mailing worms last month, according to a report from one security company.

Guillaume Lovet, EMEA AV team leader at Fortinet, attributed the increase to the recent resurgence of MyDoom, with MyDoom.BB and other minor variants. Lovet also said Sober.K contributed to the increase in mass mailers last month, "with its relatively new, but far-reaching social engineering strategy”.

Of the 1000 malicious codes Fortinet detected last month, 40 percent were trojans and backdoors, 10 percent were mass mailing worms, and 20 percent were net worms. Simple droppers accounted for 10 percent and 20 percent were greyware.

Lovet also commented on the Bropia worm, which was detected early February. “The technique deployed by this worm represents a major breakthrough in terms of social engineering methods," Lovet said. "Users are very likely to trust their IM contacts and to open the files they'd send.”

"The advent of the Bropia worm also illustrates that additional care must be taken when using instant messaging.”