Worm.com

Messaging security leader Cloudmark, Inc.
announced today that its anti-virus solution has consistently blocked new
virus strains and variants faster and more accurately than competing
solutions since its release in March. Along with the anti-spam and
anti-phishing capabilities in its comprehensive Cloudmark Authority(TM)
solution, Cloudmark’s anti-virus protection leverages a high-performance
architecture and threat detection methodology specifically designed for
service provider networks. More than 50 of the world’s largest ISPs are
currently using Cloudmark Authority to combat viruses, spam, and phishing.
Cloudmark Authority Anti-Virus, a new module that delivers specific
protection against all virus formats, has been adopted by close to a dozen
service providers.

“We began offering a broad range of anti-virus capabilities at the
beginning of the year to round out our end-to-end messaging security
solutions for service providers and it has quickly become a compelling
differentiator for us,” says Vipul Prakash, Founder and Chief Scientist of
Cloudmark. “By blocking new threats and variants in minutes versus the
hours or even days of competitive solutions, we are able to prevent viruses
from infecting a large number of machines and potentially impacting service
availability.”

The Value of Real-time Response

Every minute that a new virus is allowed to propagate across a service
provider’s network can cause exponentially more subscribers to be affected
and, in turn, lead to service degradation and customer dissatisfaction.
Messaging infrastructure providers are increasingly focusing on speed in
containing new threats as critical to an effective anti-virus strategy.

“Our customers report that Cloudmark has blocked every new virus and done
so significantly faster than any other solution,” says Ken Simpson, CEO of
Mail Channels, a Cloudmark OEM partner. “Cloudmark’s effectiveness and
accuracy are at an unprecedented level. Unlike traditional solutions,
Cloudmark blocks viruses before they hit mailboxes, completely eliminating
the virus problem for our customers.”

Intelligent Message Fingerprinting for Viruses

Cloudmark Authority Anti-Virus is able to block new viruses, worms and
mutated threats faster than traditional or other “zero-hour” AV solutions
by virtue of Cloudmark’s unique intelligent message fingerprinting
algorithms. These algorithms generate fingerprints on messages and
attachments for real-time identification of viruses and other threats. If
a single message is found containing a verified virus fingerprint, it will
be blocked.

Cloudmark’s approach contrasts dramatically with systems that rely on rules
or heuristics that tend to be time and resource consuming, or pattern
detection that actually requires witnessing a certain volume of incidents
to spread before starting to block. The latter also leads to large amounts
of false positives since legitimate newsletters and mass mailings may be
blocked as well.

New classes of email viruses and worms are more sophisticated, spreading
rapidly and evolving into variants that stay one step ahead of competitive
anti-virus solutions. Cloudmark anti-virus fingerprints are resistant to
mutations, such as changes in content, sender, URL, and other attributes,
so virus variants are detected and stopped immediately.

Greater Resource Efficiency

Cloudmark’s approach utilizes 1/10th of the system resources of traditional
rules-based anti-virus solutions. Since scanning for all threat types is
performed concurrently on the same platform, there is less drain on
resources than with separate anti-spam, anti-virus, and anti-phishing
solutions. In addition, Authority is uniquely able to process messages at
near wire-speed since messages are scanned against an in-memory cache of
verified virus fingerprints rather than heavy rule-sets.

“The low overhead and fast performance of Cloudmark’s solution have enabled
us to drastically reduce the number of servers required to run our
anti-abuse solution,” says Mark Herbert, founder and director of intY, a
leading European provider of email and Internet services. “Prior to
Cloudmark, new anti-virus rules released by the vendor would drive up CPU
utilization in an unpredictable manner.”

About Cloudmark

Cloudmark, Inc. delivers the industry’s fastest and most accurate
anti-spam, anti-phishing, and anti-virus solutions. Founded in 2001 by
pioneers in messaging anti-abuse, Cloudmark architected an innovative
approach combining intelligent message fingerprinting with the world’s
largest
real-time threat detection network. Cloudmark solutions protect more than
120 million mailboxes and 50+ ISP networks worldwide with customers and
partners including NTT Communications, Time Warner, Cox Communications,
Charter Communications, Vodafone, SUN. A privately held,
San Francisco-based company, Cloudmark’s comprehensive portfolio addresses
the unique needs of Service Provider, enterprise and desktop users. For
more information about Cloudmark, visit http://www.cloudmark.com .

Information provided by: Findarticles.com

Leading Enterprise Security Vendor Notes "Big Yellow" As First of Many Attacks Focused on Desktop Applications Other Than Microsoft

Award-Winning Blink([R]) Professional Endpoint Security Software Already Protects Enterprise Customers

ALISO VIEJO, Calif. — eEye Digital Security([R]), the leading developer of endpoint security and vulnerability management software solutions, as well as the industry’s foremost contributor to security research and education, today announced that it has discovered Big Yellow, a significant, non-Microsoft-based malware that has both worm and botnet characteristics and is currently propagating in the wild using Symantec’s popular anti-virus software. Big Yellow exploits a vulnerability in the remote management interface for versions of Symantec AntiVirus and Symantec Client Security, which could be remotely exploited by an anonymous attacker in order to execute arbitrary code with SYSTEM privileges on an affected system, thus giving the attacker complete control.

Many IT departments are not prepared for attacks on non-Microsoft-based applications and have not yet deployed the patch available for this widely deployed anti-virus software (available here: http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/security/Content/2006.05.25.html). As a result, this new class of malware presents a very potent problem for the enterprise. eEye discovered this vulnerability in late May 2006 and worked with Symantec to create a patch at that time. However, many IT departments have not yet deployed this patch, as heretofore they have not considered their desktop security applications as a point of vulnerability. Those enterprises that have already deployed Blink([R]) Professional, eEye’s award-winning endpoint security software, are already protected against this new form of malware eEye has named Big Yellow.

"Given the rapid discovery of critical security vulnerabilities within desktop applications other than Microsoft, the release of malware of this magnitude targeting non-Microsoft software was only a matter of time," said Marc Maiffret, eEye’s founder and CTO. "IT urgently needs to understand that the new vector for attack will not come from Microsoft, but from the myriad applications that are scattered throughout its network. From anti-virus to iTunes, these non-Microsoft desktop applications, many of which IT is not even aware of, will become the enterprise’s biggest point of vulnerability very, very quickly. We strongly recommend IT take two steps immediately. First, enterprises need to implement a vulnerability management program that includes more than just Microsoft applications. Second, enterprise IT should implement a comprehensive, integrated endpoint security product that delivers proactive protection from unknown and known threats."

eEye’s world-class research team, which was also responsible for discovering Code Red, the world’s first major Microsoft-based worm, discovered the Big Yellow malware late on December 14 on its "honey pot" network - a network designed specifically to identify new classes of attack. Additional details on this new worm can be found here:

http://research.eeye.com/html/alerts/AL20061215.html.

Blink Professional, the industry’s first Unified Security Client, sets a new bar in comprehensive, integrated endpoint security for the enterprise. In addition to the industry’s strongest Host-based Intrusion Prevention System (HIPS), Blink consolidates multiple security functions onto a single, centrally managed agent. Blink is the first to deliver all of the system-based client security functions on a single agent, including HIPS, application and system-level firewalls, anti-phishing, anti-spyware, sophisticated control over removable storage, application execution control, dynamic policy control, a local Retina([R]) vulnerability assessment scanner and, very soon, an anti-virus and anti-malware component as well.

Deployed as a software agent on a Windows-based server, desktop PC or laptop, Blink Professional leverages multiple layers of protection — more so than any other endpoint security product — to shield individual digital assets from attacks and keep systems up and running. Blink Professional not only delivers the industry’s most comprehensive endpoint security for the attacks that are affecting users today, it unifies this functionality in order to reduce the memory and computing resources necessary to support the agent. Blink Professional also serves as a platform to which future security functionality can be added, effectively making it the last security agent that IT has to install and manage. Just as importantly, Blink can be deployed and managed from a central location, making it ideal for distributed network environments.

For those interested in protecting their networks with Blink Professional, more information, including a demonstration and a free product trial, is available for download on eEye’s Website:

http://www.eeye.com/html/products/blink/index.html.

Information provided by: Findarticles.com

SAN MATEO — A gastrointestinal virus continues to spread at two local residential facilities, while its presence at a third independent living facility is slowly diminishing.

The San Mateo County Health Department announced Tuesday that residents at two care facilities in the county contracted the Norovirus, which causes vomiting, fever and diarrhea. Health Department officials have declined to identify the care homes but reported Thursday that 25 people at one 112-bed independent living facility and 22 residents and three employees at another 300-bed facility had been infected.

All group activities at those facilities have been canceled and visitors are not allowed, Health Department spokeswoman Beverly Thames said. She said the Health Department has advised these facilities to quarantine their residents to prevent the spread of the highly contagious virus.

Only 27 residents at a third residential facility in the county, Bonnie Brae Terrace in Belmont, remain quarantined after more than half of the long-term-care facility’s residents became ill. Of 164 residents, 85 contracted the Norovirus sometime after Nov. 23, which is when the first resident reported feeling ill.

A quarantine at Unit 1A at the San Mateo Medical Center, the county hospital, was lifted completely Wednesday. Earlier, 12 patients and 13 employees at the unit had contracted the illness, but 72 hours had passed without any new cases there.

According to the Health Department, in 2004 there were 123 reported cases of the Norovirus in San Mateo County. In 2005 there were 166 cases, and between January and April there were 320.

Norovirus can be transmitted through close contact with infected people or by eating contaminated food. The illness typically lasts one to two days.

c2006 ANG Newspapers. Cannot be used or repurposed without prior
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Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved.

Information provided by: Findarticles.com