Fortinet® - the pioneer and leading provider of unified threat management (UTM) solutions - today announced the worldwide top 10 most reported high-risk threats for August 2008. Two of the most common threats for August 2008 were specifically designed to trick consumers into believing that the treats themselves were actually security and antivirus software.

Derek Manky, security researcher for Fortinet commented, “Cyber criminals are clearly trying to take advantage of users’ security concerns with an intense campaign for rogue security applications this past month. This is a popular, emerging area that provides a new social engineering approach -- black hats posing as white hats.”

Malware W32/Multidr.JD!tr and HTML/Agent.HFZ!phish, disguised as security software AntiVirus XP 2008 and XP Security Center, claimed the top two positions in Fortinet’s Top 10 with nearly 20 percent of the month’s activities.

W32/Multidr.JD was especially prolific with a one-day attack in late August that dislodged pesky mass mailer Netsky from its persistent No. 1 position. HTML/Agent.HFZ!phish arrived in users’ in-boxes as a purported UPS email with rogue XP Security Center attached, claiming to be an important document.

Fortinet’s FortiGuard® Global Security Research Team compiled this report based on intelligence gathered from FortiGate® multi-threat security systems in production worldwide. Customers who use Fortinet’s FortiGuard Subscription Services are already protected against the threats outlined in this report.

Following are the Worldwide Top Ten individual threats and Worldwide Top Five threat families in August.

Worldwide Top Ten Individual Threats: #1 W32/Multidr.JD!tr Trojan 10.02%, #2 HTML/Agent.HFZ!phish Trojan 8.15%, #3 W32/Netsky!similar Mass mailer 5.95%, #4 JS/Agent.WMA!tr.dldr Trojan 5.9%, #5 W32/Virut.A Virus 4.65%, #6 JS/Iframe.DR Trojan 4.19%, #7 W32/Agent.KG!tr Trojan 3.36%, #8 HTML/Iframe.DN!tr.dldr Trojan 2.59%, #9 HTML/Iframe_CID!exploit Exploit 2.12%, #10 JW32/Agent.HKR!tr Trojan 1.98%.

Worldwide Top Five Threat Families: #1 Netsky 9.5%, #2 OnlineGames 7.7%, #3 MyTob 5.8%, #4 Virut 5.4%, #5 Pushdo 3.0%.

Other malware trends observed during this period include the following:

* Virut.A, a virus that infects executable files, refuses to back down, remaining in the top five position for seven consecutive months;

* Mytob and Pushdo mass mailers slid out of the top 10, but remain relevant;

* Iframe traffic redirectors remain strong, moving up one position to sixth place from the July edition of this report.

To read the full August report, please visit: http://www.fortiguardcenter.com/reports/roundup_aug_2008.html.

For ongoing threat research, bookmark the FortiGuard Center (http://www.fortiguardcenter.com/) or add it to your RSS feed by going to http://www.fortinet.com/FortiGuardCenter/rss/index.html.

To learn more about FortiGuard Subscription Services, visit http://www.fortinet.com/products/fortiguard.html.

FortiGuard Subscription Services offer broad security solutions including antivirus, intrusion prevention, Web content filtering and anti-spam capabilities. These services help enable protection against threats on both application and network layers. FortiGuard Services are updated by the FortiGuard Global Security Research Team, which enables Fortinet to deliver a combination of multi-layered security intelligence and zero-day protection from new and emerging threats. These updates are delivered to all FortiGate, FortiMail and FortiClient products.

About Fortinet (www.fortinet.com) Fortinet is the pioneer and leading provider of ASIC-accelerated unified threat management, or UTM, security systems, which are used by enterprises and service providers to increase their security while reducing total operating costs. Fortinet solutions were built from the ground up to integrate multiple levels of security protection--including firewall, antivirus, intrusion prevention, VPN, spyware prevention and anti-spam -- designed to help customers protect against network and content level threats. Leveraging a custom ASIC and unified interface, Fortinet solutions offer advanced security functionality that scales from remote office to chassis-based solutions with integrated management and reporting. Fortinet solutions have won multiple awards around the world and are the only security products that are certified in six programs by ICSA Labs: Firewall, Antivirus, IPSec VPN, SSL VPN, Network IPS, and Anti-spam. Fortinet is privately held and based in Sunnyvale, California.

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Media Contact: Sebastian Rice, 02 9959 1991, seb@silverspan.com