The top ten most prevalent spyware and malware threats for the month of August have been announced today by a leading provider of Windows security software, Sunbelt Software. Compiled from monthly scans performed by Sunbelt's award-winning antispyware tool, CounterSpy™, and its new anti-malware solution, VIPRE™ Antivirus + Antispyware, the report, is a service of the Sunbelt Software Malware Research Labs.

The Antivirus XP 2008 threat is a new threat that appears for the first time in the top ten lists. Attempting to scare users into paying for useless antispyware protection by leading them to believe that their PCs are infected with malware applications, Antivirus XP 2008 is a rogue, malicious backdoor trojan.

The number of times a particular spyware or malware infection was detected during CounterSpy and VIPRE scans that report back to Sunbelt's community of opt-in users  is represented by the results.

The top ten most prevalent spyware threats for the month of August are:
1. Trojan-Downloader.Zlob.Media-Codec -1.72%
2. Adware.NetAdware.Gen -1.26%
3. Trojan.FakeAlert -1.23%
4. Virtumonde -1.11%
5. Antivirus XP 2008 (Winifixer) -1.00%
6. Trojan.NewMediaCodec    -0.79%
7. Trojan.Win32.Monder.gen -0.73%
8. Trojan.Crypt.XPACK.Gen -0.64%
9. C2.Lop -0.52%
10. Backdoor.Rbot -0.52%

The Sunbelt Software Malware Research Labs specializes in the discovery and analysis of dangerous vulnerabilities (i.e., bugs, security holes, maligned features or combination of operations) that could be exploited for Internet and email attacks. Creating and testing new spyware and malware definitions on a constant basis, the research team actively researches new spyware outbreaks.