Fighting malware and spam

Mapping and understanding extinction patterns for viruses and worms over 15 years

Joe Wells Lavasoft

The author began collating commonality of viruses in 1991. In February 1993, Virus Bulletin began publishing its monthly Virus Prevalence Table. In July 1993, the author began publishing the WildList. The WildList provided overall information on threats being reported by participants, and frequency data (based on number of reporters) can be extracted. The Virus Bulletin Prevalence Table is more limited in focus, but more specific on commonality.

By extrapolating commonality from the WildList and using data from the Virus Bulletin Prevalence Table as a control baseline, the author proposes to map, explain, and project extinction patterns of viruses and related threats.