2004 year of Netsky worm
Netsky-P, an email computer worm allegedly written by a German teenager, was the hardest-hitting virus of 2004, disrupting tens of thousands of businesses and homes worldwide, Web security firm Sophos says.
The worm accounted for almost a quarter of all virus incidents reported, Sophos said in a report on Wednesday, with four other Netsky variants also making it into the top 10, and the Sasser worm by the same writer taking third place.
"2004 was the year of the Netsky," Sophos senior technology consultant Graham Cluley said in a report covering the period December 2003 to November 2004, adding that Netsky-P was still the world's most widely reported virus, 8 months after its discovery.
Sasser, a worm which spreads not via email but via the Internet, attacking Windows computers not protected with a security patch from Microsoft, was first seen just two weeks after the patch was made available.
"The time period between patch availability and worm exploit is getting shorter than ever," Cluley said.
Overall, Sophos protected against more than 97,000 viruses, worms and Trojan Horses -- which lurk inside a device without the user knowing it -- during the year. More than 10,000 were new viruses.