"E-mail viruses are now twice as prevalent as they were in 2001, with one e-mail in every 200 containing a virus.
Virus-scanning company MessageLabs said it stopped 9.3 million viruses in 2 billion e-mails this year, which equated to one virus in every 215 e-mails. That compares with 1.8 million viruses stopped in 718 million e-mails in 2001, or one virus in every 398 e-mails.
According to the company, which measured results up to the end of the second week of December, the most active virus this year was Klez.H, with 4.9 million copies stopped by MessageLabs. Yaha.E came second with 1.1 million copies, then it was Bugbear.A with 842,333, Klez.E with 380,937 and SirCam.A with 309,832. These figures represent only the numbers stopped by MessageLabs for its corporate customers. The actual numbers of these viruses are much higher.
Although Klez was the most active virus, Bugbear was the most dramatic outbreak of the year, infecting one in every 87 e-mails at its height in October. Its dual-mode attack saw it accounting for 30 percent of all reports of viruses to antivirus company Sophos in the last month--well ahead of former top-spot incumbent Klez, which by then only accounted for around 8 percent of all reports." [News.com]
This is another article I want to distribute to SLS members. We're taking some steps to try and cut down on the number of viruses that go out through our mailing lists, but your best defense is a good offense. If your library isn't using anti-virus software, please get some and install it ASAP. We'll be doing an article in the SLS Newsletter about this soon.
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