The D-variant of the Netsky family has become one of the most problematic bugs roaming the Internet.
Even though Netsky-D peaked in March, it remains one of the top viruses going into June. A member of the virulent Netsky family, the D-variant was first spotted in the wild on March 1, 2004. It spreads via email.
MessageLabs Inc., a managed email security firm based in New York, places Netsky-D at the head of its Top Threat list, categorizing it as a high risk.
Central Command, Inc., an anti-virus and anti-spam company based in Medina, Ohio, ranks Netsky-D in third place, noting that it accounts for 8.6 percent of all viruses in the wild.
Patrick Hinojosa, CTO at Panda Software U.S., an anti-virus and intrusion prevention company with U.S. headquarters in Glendale, Calif., says this Netsky variant tricks people into opening it up by spoofing the sender's address.
''The problem is you might get an email that looks like it's from me,'' says Hinojosa. ''If someone gets infected with Netsky-D and they have my email address on their compuer, it would scoop up that address and use it as the sender's address... It wasn't hugely damaging but hugely annoying. It created a traffic nightmare on the email lines.''
Steve Sundermeier, a vice president with Central Command, says Netsky-D has largely been a problem for home users, since most enterprises are able to block it at the perimeter.
Netsky-D Ranked as High Risk
