Generally speaking, only those viruses and worms that caused serious epidemics managed to attract media and public attention. According to Panda Software, this is a list of some of the more curious malicious code that appeared during 2005.
Quick off the blocks: Downloader.AEE had the dubious honor of being the first threat detected in 2005. Seems like the creators of this malicious code didn’t have a party invite.
Casanova: Mydoom.AK, one of the many members of this infamous family of worms, used a range of subjects and file names connected with Valentine’s Day, along with other more lurid bait.
Most ingenious: Assiral.A spread in an e-mail message very similar to the one used by LoveLetter. In social engineering just like in fashion, it looks like the classics always make a comeback.
Most annoying: Elitper.D took this prize hands down as it was able to prevent up to 90 applications from running, including Word, Excel, Winzip and Winrar.
Soccer mad: Sober.V took advantage of next year’s World Cup in Germany to trick users by offering free tickets to the finals.
Most incompetent: Banker.APM was a Trojan worm that tried to steal confidential bank details. However, due to numerous programming errors, it turned out to be something of a failure as a thief.
Liar, liar: Downloader.EJD spread in messages that claimed to be from Microsoft. These e-mails warned users of the danger of the wave of Zotob and IRCBot worms that saturated the Net in August and tried to trick the unwary into running the supposed patch to prevent infection.
Lowest of the low: Zar.A.worm used the subject of donations to the victims of the Asian tsunami in order to trick users. Downloader.ENC pulled a similar stunt using hurricane Katrina. In this case, a web page supposedly offering support to victims of Katrina actually downloaded a Trojan on to visitors’ computers.
Thieves on the prowl: The biggest thieves this year were the Banker Trojans, designed to carry out online fraud. Nevertheless, the creators of these malicious codes should invest some of their returns on language classes, as the messages that some of the Trojans use to try to trick users left a lot to be desired.
Spoilsport: This “accolade” is given to the Format.A Trojan, designed for PSP (PlayStation Portable) and Tahen.A and Tahen.B, aimed at Nintendo DS. These creations didn’t just annoy users of these video consoles, but could even render the hardware completely unusable.
Most observant: The Bancos.NL Trojan was a stand out in this section. It spied on users by waiting until they entered financial or banking websites, monitoring some 3,000 related addresses.
Mobile enemy: The ComWar.A.worm was the first worm for cell phones that could send itself in MMS messages, in the same way as classic e-mail worms.