Greenville, SC (PRWEB) February 9, 2005
In recent months, spammers using newer, more potent viruses have hijacked seemingly protected home and business computers to send out millions of unsolicited commercial emails. But MailProtector, a comparatively small email security provider in Greenville, South Carolina, has managed to stop the virus before it reaches the recipient's computer and prevent it from attacking again.

Most users are unaware that their machines have been hijacked, and if they do realize it, don't know how to stop it-or prevent it from happening again. Virus writers mostly now target these home broadband connected computers because they generally lack adequate email virus protection. This latest technique however is aimed squarely at bypassing email security.

"This new virus has once again caught the virus protection industry off guard," said David Setzer, of MailProtector, "especially the big players. Because of our size and flexibility, we were able to move immediately and deliver an unprecedented zero-day defense that protects our users completely."

Virus writers who've been working with spammers for about 2 years now, have recently created a new technique to encrypt viruses in .rar files. It is very difficult, if not impossible, for a normal anti-virus scanner to successfully scan these types of encrypted files.

"The virus writers attempted a similar attack with encrypted .zip files around this time last year," Setzer said. "We reacted swiftly and provided protection for our users then. Because most anti-virus engines still rely on file size, name and the cyclic redundancy check (CRC) instead of actual anti-virus scanning to detect these viruses, they still can't detect the morphing versions of them."

MailProtector is mainly used by non-profit, government and business entities to protect their end users from malicious threats. Over 1,000 organizations internationally benefit from their technology. One such client, Peoples Independent Bank (of Alabama) has used Mail Protector since 2002 to keep their employees across all of their branches free of email viruses. "We haven't had one email virus infection on any of our banking center or corporate office computers since we've been using MailProtector," said Jack T. Hancock, vice president of Peoples Independent Bank. "It allows us to concentrate on our customers and not worry about losing data or productivity to a malicious cyber attack."

Setzer strongly recommends that all email users consider .rar files vulnerable and only unpack them on secure workstations. "It's always best to take extra precautions, especially the way today's viruses seem to evolve on a daily basis," he said.

About Mailprotector's Parent Company, VirtualConnect Technologies
VirtualConnect Technologies has provided comprehensive email security through its Mailprotector® Email Security Suite for over 5 years. In addition to an advanced spam filter, Mailprotector also includes email attack protection, vulnerability protection, email anti-virus and availability services. The team of experts at VirtualConnect constantly monitors threat tactics to protect over 1,500 organizations across three continents.

If you'd like more information, or to schedule an interview with David Setzer, please call or email David.

Contact:
David Setzer
Tel. 1 (864) 288-9595 X 245
Email: david_setzer@virtualconnect.net