BitDefender’s February threat report shows removable devices poses biggest risk 

With two Trojans, two Exploits and one Worm making up February’s top five e-threats, this month’s chart sees exploits through removable devices and operating system vulnerabilities retaking the top positions as the methods of infection to watch out for.

February finished up with a surprise, with last month’s number one e-threat (Trojan.Clicker.CM) disappearing from the top ten. Instead, Trojan.AutorunInf.Gen – the generic mechanism that spreads malware using removable devices such as USB keys, memory cards or external hard-disks – was the top e-threat of the month accounting for 9.09 percent of global malware infections.

“External devices should be scanned on a regular basis,” advised Catalin Cosoi, senior researcher at BitDefender “This is a safe practice especially when these devices have been plugged into computers at work, internet cafes or other public locations,” he added.

An overview of the five most prevalent threats in February:

Win32.Worm.Downadup.Gen is up one place since January. Ranked second with 6.24 percent, this worm exploits a well-known Microsoft® Windows® vulnerability. “Win32.Worm.Downadup.Gen’s continued presence in our monthly top 10’s suggests computer users’ reluctance to update their operating system and their antimalware solution,” explained Catalin Cosoi.

“More alarmingly, security fixes issued by Microsoft® a year ago rectifies this vulnerability, but it is evident from the amount of infections each month that people are ignoring this too.”

BitDefender’s third and fourth e-threats for February are Exploit.PDF-JS.Gen with 5.13 percent and Exploit.PDF-Payload.Gen with 4.21 percent of the total amount of infections. These generic detections deal with manipulated PDF files exploiting different vulnerabilities found in Adobe® Acrobat Reader’s Javascript engine. Their purpose is to execute malicious code on users’ computers.  

Torrents continue to be one of the favorite vectors of malware distribution. Trojan.Wimad.Gen.1 is February’s number five e-threat with an infection percentage of 3.37.

A yet-to-be-aired episode of your favorite series or a box-office movie could be your ticket for infection by this Trojan.

BitDefender’s® February 2010 Top 10 E-Threat list includes: