Top threats: Conficker, AutoRun, gaming trojans
Though reports surrounding Conficker have largely died down since its widespread outbreak earlier this year, the sophisticated worm remained a prevalent threat in September, according to security firm ESET.Conficker was the most prevalent threat detected by ESET's malware reporting and tracking system, ThreatSense.Net, last month. The worm spreads via unpatched operating systems, vulnerable network shares or AutoRun on removable media devices. It accounted for more than 8.7 percent of all malware detected, according to ESET's September “Global Threat Trends” report, released Thursday.
“Despite the fact that the worm has been detected for a number of months now — it's almost coming up on a year — people aren't taking appropriate precautions to prevent it,” Aryeh Goretsky, distinguished researcher at ESET, told SCMagazineUS.com on Friday.Malware other than Conficker that exploits the AutoRun feature on Windows computers was the second most prevalent type of threat detected by ESET during September, accounting for 7.5 percent of all malware.
A family of trojans targeting online game-players, called Win32/PSW.OnLineGames, made up more than six percent of threats to earn the third spot. These trojans typically utilize keylogging capabilities to steal online gaming credentials.
