June 2010: Website-infecting Trojan Becomes One of the Top Threats in Europe

In June, the regular monthly report mapping the most widespread computer threats has shown several emerging trends. One of the top threats spreading across almost in all European counties is a trojan infecting websites. Technically, it is a script injected into web pages, which automatically redirects visitors to IFRAME-infected websites, from which the script downloads and executes additional malicious code to unprotected computers.

The threat, classified by ESET as JS/TrojanDownloader.Pegel.BR, has claimed the fifth position in the global ranking, gaining a share of 2.29% of all computer threats detected on the computers of users of ESET NOD32 Antivirus and ESET Smart Security products. This result is based on data provided by the ESET ThreatSense.Net® statistical system.

The variants of the Win32/Conficker worm remain the most frequently occurring threat with a share 9.79%. One interesting thing about Conficker is its extremely high infection share in Ireland and Slovenia accounting for almost one third of all malware detected in the respective countries. Gaining high global shares are also the INF/Autorun class of threat (6.57%) and Win32/PSW.OnLineGames (4.26%). The fourth position is occupied by trojan variants from the Win32/Agent family, stealing sensitive user data from infected users (4.26%).

EUROPE, MIDDLE EAST and AFRIKA (EMEA)
In the EMEA region, the threat landscape is dominated by the variants of Win32/Conficker with extremely high infection shares in Ireland (28.30%) and Slovenia (29.17%).
JS/TrojanDownloader.Pegel.BR appears in the top three ranking for the most frequently detected threats in almost all countries of the region, with particularly high shares in Austria (14.55%), United Kingdom (12.34%), Belgium (8.77%), the Czech Republic (10.16%), Denmark (11.87%), Norway (10.10%), Germany (9.16%), and Ireland (7.99%), as well as in Sweden (6.33%) and Slovakia (5.44%).
INF/Autorun is the top threat in Greece (5.98%) and in Slovakia (5.91%). In Israel, the local ranking is topped by a threat labeled as VBS/AutoRun.BX (7,05%).
In Russia, the second highest ranking behind Win32/Conficker belongs to a trojan dubbed Win32/Spy.Ursnif.A (7.54%), which harvests sensitive user data and exports it to remote computers.

About ESET
Founded in 1992, ESET is a global provider of security solutions for the home and business segment. The industry leader in proactive malware detection, ESET's NOD32 antivirus holds the world record for the number of Virus Bulletin "VB100 Awards," never to have missed a single “In-the-Wild” worm or virus since the inception of testing in 1998.