Blackworm Virus Loses Top Three Threat Ranking

Published 19th September 2006

September 19 2006 - CipherTrust, Inc., the global market leader in messaging security, today announces the Blackworm (Kasper.A) virus has dropped from its position in the top three email viruses for the first time ever this week.

CipherTrust Research Labs has identified an average of 178 viruses being sent each day for the week commencing 4th September, up four per cent from the week before.

Ed Rowley, technical consultant at CipherTrust said: "The decline of the Blackworm suggests that the total number of infected systems still spreading the worm is gradually decreasing."

The Blackworm virus infects Windows users through email attachments and shared network files. Any computer that is infected with the virus will send out copies of the virus in attachments through e-mail. The Blackworm has its own email engine enabling it to send an email even when the email programme is not running.

The Blackworm virus has been know to infect close to 300,000 systems in a week.