Throwback Thursday: The Number of the Beasts

Posted by   Helen Martin on   Apr 7, 2016

The Virus Bulletin Virus Prevalence Table, which ran from 1992 until 2013, gave users a regular snapshot of what was really going on in the virus (and later malware) world, each month recording the number of incidents of each virus reported to VB in the preceding month.

In August 2000, Denis Zenkin, a self-confessed virus prevalence table junkie, shared his findings following a study of the virus prevalence tables over the preceding few years, allowing him to determine the top ten viruses of the period, the top viruses by type, and the viruses of the year.

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Denis found that, in August 2000, macro viruses were still holding the number one spot in the world's virus charts — but that they were gradually losing their dominance to worm-style viruses. From his analysis, Denis predicted that, together with worms written in script languages, macro viruses would be the major threat to both individual and corporate users in the future.

The article can be read here in HTML-format, or downloaded here as a PDF.

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