Forums
May 13The Email Virus
by in Feature Articles on 2013-06-12Joe worked hard every day fighting the good fight against viruses and malware for a large financial firm in the UK. Their security setup suffered flaws, but it worked well enough. Scanners on incoming email, an antivirus product on the mail servers, signature updates every 30 minutes, and a basic antivirus on desktops all worked at Joe’s command to protect their network. There was no default route back out to the Internet and a Machiavellian filter restricted web access. Despite all this, Joe had to contend with one vulnerability not even the most advanced security system in the world could defend.
Spam changed faster than their filter-rules, and sometimes bad things slipped through. Joe’s team hoped to lessen the risk of this by educating their users to NEVER, EVER, EVER OPEN SOMETHING THAT LOOKS SUSPICIOUS. As predictable as an Enterprise Red Shirt dying on an Away Team mission, users would always go ahead and crack open malicious EXE files from their “long-lost cousin Frank” and completely fry their computer in minutes.