Increasing security threats to corporate data have posed serious questions to vendors of anti-virus and anti-spam software and forced developers to break new ground in terms of product sophistication to counter these and other attacks.
This is the view of Zandre Rudolph, a business security consultant at Rectron, a distributor of Symantec AntiVirus and Symantec LiveState Recovery products.
Rudolph says new developments in virus and anti-spam counter-measures being offered by software vendors in the security arena include the cutting-edge Norton SystemWorks 2006 - a multi-purpose solution from Symantec (and part of its recently launched 2006 range) designed to meet the harshest virus threats and combat dangerous spyware.
"E-mail is a critical component of the corporate infrastructure and a target for malicious code and attackers. Today, organisations require more comprehensive and reliable protection, particularly as spam is fast approaching the threat levels of viruses.
"What`s more," says Rudolph, "organisations are coming to realise that the challenges to their data integrity do not originate from external sources exclusively. Companies need to adopt strategies that emphasise protection against both internal and external threats," he says.
He points out that in a Windows environment, applications such as Microsoft Exchange and SQL Server are of vital importance to the continuity of business activities - yet they are extremely vulnerable to attack from all sources.
"To address this, Symantec has developed a comprehensive mail security `bundle` for SMTP gateway and groupware tiers," says Rudolph.
The Symantec Mail Security Enterprise Edition is an important part of Symantec`s Email Security and Availability solution strategy, which ensures the integrity of e-mail systems and information by controlling the flow of unauthorised or inappropriate content within the organisation.
"In addition, Enterprise Edition will make it easier to implement other security technologies - now and in the future - as companies look to new ways to reduce the volume of spam, counter viruses and address a variety of possible internal threats to the network."
Rudolph says solutions that provide integrated virus scanning, anti-spam, content filtering controls, and the flexibility to choose between multi-platform software-based, appliance-based and hosted service solutions should be high on security-conscious organisations` shopping lists.
"Within Symantec Mail Security Enterprise Edition, for example, there are several deployment options to protect the SMTP gateway - the primary entry point for Internet-borne threats.
"Today, defence against unknown and known viruses is a given, so new generation software is going further. New anti-spam technologies, for instance, must provide greater than 99% detection, while the target for accuracy rates against false positives must go further to around 99.999%."
Rudolph adds that Symantec Mail Security Enterprise Edition is backed by Symantec Security Response, the leading Internet security research and support organisation, which ensures anti-spam definitions are regularly updated and that virus definitions can be updated on a scheduled hourly, daily or weekly basis, as well as in real-time as new threats emerge.
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