Trojan-Spy.Win32.Zbot.gen was January’s second most potent malware threat and was found in 4.91% of detections. This entry was top of the Sunbelt list for most of 2009 and has dropped by 1.32% compared with December’s results.

Sunbelt Software vice-president of Threat Research, Michael St. Neitzel says:

"I think we can expect to see Trojan horse programs continue to be the top detections for the foreseeable future, Trojans are used to download and install a wide variety of other malware and those are the real moneymakers for the bad guys."

Other Trojans included in the top 10 were; Trojan.Win32.Generic!SB.0, Trojan.Win32.Malware, Trojan.ASF.Wimad (v) and Trojan.HTML.FakeAlert.a (v).

The majority of the files in the top 10 are categorised as moderate to severe threats and circulate through methods such as stealth installation and social engineering.