Malware cost the global economy an estimated $166 billion in 2004, according to a new report by antivirus firm Eset, producer of NOD32 Antivirus System.
Justin Stanford, CEO of Eset Southern Africa, says most of the infections occurred because companies failed to arm themselves with up-to-date patches and effective antivirus solutions.
"This negligence results in extensive spells of unnecessary downtime, costing small and large businesses on a dramatic scale," he says.
Stanford notes that SA has already experienced many new and potent malware outbreaks this year, as well as the ongoing proliferation of some old favourites - five of which are among the most malicious and damaging viruses to hit the country.
"Naturally these won`t be the last, but we can at the very least learn from the malware we`ve seen and attempt to stay abreast of the criminal masterminds that create them," he says.
According to Eset`s VirusRadar.com global real-time malware monitoring system, the most malicious forms of malware seen in the past 12 months was the NetSky.Q worm. About 16 million samples have been recorded of the worm, which is described as the most potent and widespread internet worm to hit South African IT in the last year.
"Incredibly, the software vulnerability that NetSky.Q abuses was discovered in 2001," says Stanford.
Another destructive piece of malware was the Phishing.gen trojan: a collective sample-set for all phishing e-mails of which over 15 million have been detected by VirusRadar.com.
"With the first South African targeted phishing scams detected by Eset SA in May 2005, the
e-mail did not necessarily arouse suspicion because it displayed the identical corporate imagery of a very well-known South African bank. The scam made unique use of the bank`s Web site as a backdrop over which a popup window would appear to illicit the end-user`s online banking details, surreptitiously sending them to the scammers` server located in Russia."
Stanford also highlights the Sober.I worm, Zafi.B virus and NetSky.D worm as being among SA`s most prevalent during the past year.
Share