The IT security company has made public a report comprised out of the centralized data extracted from its global network of monitoring stations. The Sophos report concludes on a stagnant malware environment. The fact that the prevalent items of malicious software have preserved their July tendencies is Sophos' strongest argument for the inert threats.

"There are no new entries in August's chart and only one re-entry, the Mytob-E worm which last appeared in the chart in May 2005. This month's top two - Netsky-P and Mytob-AS - were also the most common in August 2005. Protection against Netsky-P has been available for more than two years, yet it remains the most widespread email worm," revealed Sophos.

The released statistics indicate a continuous descending viral threat, Sophos identifying only one compromised email in 278. However, the security company has stated that the volume of Trojan horses is on the increase at 71.8% out of the total 1,998 new threats identified in August.

"It is certainly frustrating that such easily beaten threats are still plaguing our email highways - is it a simple case that people who are infected don't know or don't care?" explained Carole Theriault, senior security consultant at Sophos. "While the UK media regularly reports on the dangers of cyber crime, informing the public how to defend their PCs, perhaps some users just don't think it could happen to them. Wake up - it can. If you use the internet and don't have proper security measures in place, you are not only endangering your data, you are keeping nasty old timers like Mytob and Netsky worms alive and kicking."