CYBERSPACE — ‘Tis the end of the year and the time during which the world reflects upon the previous 365 days, what was good, what was bad, and what really blew its collective mind. For Panda Software, that means releasing its annual list of computer code gone terribly wrong.According to the company’s wryly written website text, the list isn’t just a dry litany of names and injuries.
For instance, Zcodec’s spyware is declared “the most moralistic,” because it tracks web users’ online porn consumption, whereas Gatt.A earns the title of “most promiscuous,” by being able to infect any operating system it discovers, including Linux. Panda Software proclaimed Nuwar.A to be “the most sensationalistic” due to its announcement that World War III has begun.
The nod for tenacity goes to the seemingly endless supply of nearly indistinguishable Spamta worm variations released during the year, while “the most diligent” nuisance to clutter up the hard drives of the innocent is deemed to have been BarcPhish.HTML, a phishing message that goes above and beyond the call of indignity by collecting personal information including last names, membership numbers, five-digit codes, account numbers, expiration dates, and Card Verification Values — for starters.
Wearing the crown for greatest chastity is FormShared.A, a slice of P2P malware that included more than 37,000 names — none of them referring to sex; something of a wonder among code designed to be alluring to network denizens. Equally bizarre is the DarkFloppy.A worm, whose preference for infecting floppy disks compelled Panda Software to affix the apt descriptor “most archaic” upon its retro self.
To find out what the “worst job applicant,” “most competitive,” “most mischievous,” “most deceitful,” and “biggest snooper” of 2006 were, visit PandaSoftware.com and check out the Panda Software virus yearbook.
