Do you remember Melissa? You should do: it was her 10th birthday recently. And sometimes she spells her name Malissa. Or 'Kwyjibo'. She's indiscreet, expensive, but oh so infectious.
It's more than 10 years since the Melissa virus opened eyes to the netherworld of attacks on computer systems through a malicious, self-regenerating software code. Melissa still holds first place in the dubious pantheon of the most costly computer viruses ever devised, a fact that can still make Fortune 500 CFO's wince. Viruses become worldwide celebrities. Their authors revel in anonymity. Melissa's maker, who really was named Smith, now works for the FBI.
We hear less about viruses today, but Harry Pun, north Asia client services manager for Symantec Hosted Services, is quick to remind that, 'they're still just as present, and in ever-increasing forms and variations. The impact of mobiles, netbooks, and the growing overlap between personal and professional use of computers has increased every company's vulnerability to viral attack exponentially'.
Symantec Hosted Services started more than 10 years ago as a company called MessageLabs in Britain. It was, like so many other new technology start-ups, a system integrator (SI) which used its IT expertise to make all the things inside, behind and connected to computers to communicate with each other and work.
Gradually, it realised that not only was the SI business too generic and, therefore, hugely competitive, there was a great need and potentially a far greater value in protecting those computer systems against all the security dangers to which those multiple, interconnected communications had left them vulnerable.
Today, Message Labs Symantec Hosted Services protects some 11 million end-users in more than 30,000 organisations worldwide against all manner of viral attack, and even guarantees 100 per cent protection against not only all known viruses, but all unknown ones too.
It can do this because its service is hosted externally from its clients' in-house systems. Every day, Symantec Hosted Services monitors six billion e-mails and one billion Web page visits before they reach their destination, using a heuristic solution aptly brand-named Skeptic to sift virtual wheat from cyberchaff. Instead of scanning for known viruses, it scans for myriad models and indicators which, when processed together, may lead to the conclusion that a given e-mail is likely to be infected.