Sunbelt Software Announces Top 10 Malware Threats for October

Stats from leading anti-malware developer show Trojan-Spy.Win32.Zbot.gen has
stranglehold on title of most prevalent malware; social networking sites
growing target

CLEARWATER, Fla., Nov. 5 /PRNewswire/ -- Sunbelt Software, a leading provider
of Windows security software, today announced the top 10 most prevalent
malware threats for the month of October 2009. The report, compiled from
monthly scans performed by Sunbelt's award-winning antispyware tool,
CounterSpy(®), and its anti-malware solution, VIPRE® Antivirus + Antispyware,
is a service of SunbeltLabs(TM).

For October, SunbeltLabs confirmed the password-stealing Trojan threat
Trojan-Spy.Win32.Zbot.gen maintained the top spot on the list for the seventh
straight month and is still showing signs of activity and growth, accounting
for 8.48 percent of all global malware threats in October, a month over month
increase of more than 25 percent on the 6.75 percent it accounted for in
September.

The biggest move on the list was made by BehavesLike.Win32.Malware (v), a
heuristic detection for software that exhibits behaviors that are typically
associated with malicious threats, which more than doubled month on month from
1.55 percent to 3.86 percent. There were seven new entrants to the top 10 in
the month of Halloween -- typically a key time for new threats to emerge --
including Trojan.ASF.Wimad (v) taking number four on the list with 3.35
percent; INF.Autorun (v) at number five with 2.24 percent and
Trojan.Win32.FakeXPA (v) at number six with 2.18 percent.

"The threat of Trojan-Spy.Win32.Zbot.gen shows no sign of abating due to its
effective versatility in stealing cached passwords, login credentials and data
in certificates and cookies," said Michael St. Neitzel, Sunbelt Software vice
president of Threat Research. "The presence of six Trojan detections in the
top 10 indicates that Trojans and social engineering from spam email and
social networking sites continue to be popular tactics in malware creation."

The top 10 results represent the number of times a particular malware
infection was detected during CounterSpy and VIPRE scans that report back to
Sunbelt's community of opt-in users. All threats are classified moderate to
severe based on a number of criteria set out by SunbeltLabs.

The top 10 most prevalent malware threats for the month of October are:

1. Trojan-Spy.Win32.Zbot.gen 8.48%
2. Trojan.Win32.Malware 4.07%
3. BehavesLike.Win32.Malware (v) 3.86%
4. Trojan.ASF.Wimad (v)* 3.35%
5. INF.Autorun (v)* 2.24%
6. Trojan.Win32.FakeXPA (v)* 2.18%
7. MyWebSearch Toolbar* 1.80%
8. Packed.Win32.Tdss.Gen (v)* 1.74%
9. Trojan.1* 1.53%
10. Trojan.Malware* 1.50%

* New to the October Top 10 list.

To see a graphical comparison of the top 10 most prevalent malware infections
between September and October, please visit
http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/malware-threat-report/.

About SunbeltLabs
SunbeltLabs specializes in the discovery and analysis of dangerous
vulnerabilities (i.e., security holes, bugs, maligned features or combination
of operations) that could be exploited for Internet and email attacks. The
research team actively researches new malware outbreaks, creating and testing
new threat definitions on a constant basis. For detailed threat research
information and to view the top 10 threats in real time please visit
SunbeltLabs at http://www.sunbeltsecurity.com.

About Sunbelt Software
Headquartered in Tampa Bay (Clearwater), Fla., Sunbelt Software was founded in
1994 and is a leading provider of Windows security software including
enterprise antivirus, antispyware, email security, and malware analysis tools.
Leading products include the VIPRE(®) and CounterSpy(® )product lines, Sunbelt
Exchange Archiver(TM), CWSandbox(TM), and ThreatTrack(TM).

For more information about Sunbelt Software, please visit the company's
website at: http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com. To learn more about current
activities, products, and ideas at Sunbelt Software, please visit Sunbelt's
corporate blog at http://www.sunbeltblog.com. To view this release online, go
to http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Press/Releases/?id=316.

All trademarks used are owned by their respective companies.

Contact: Brian Alberti Laurie Murrell
Davies Murphy Group Sunbelt Software
+1-781-418-2403 +1-727-562-0101
sunbelt@daviesmurphy.com lauriem@sunbeltsoftware.com
www.daviesmurphy.com www.sunbeltsoftware.com

SOURCE Sunbelt Software

Brian Alberti of Davies Murphy Group for Sunbelt Software, +1-781-418-2403,
sunbelt@daviesmurphy.com; or Laurie Murrell of Sunbelt Software,
+1-727-562-0101, lauriem@sunbeltsoftware.com