eTrust Antivirus Groupware Options User Guide

Using an electronic messaging system is a common way for today’s corporations to communicate. Quite often, the messaging system becomes an essential method for sharing information and documents, both within and outside of the enterprise. Unfortunately, these same systems can have gaps in security that enable infections to rapidly spread through an organization—posing risks to both data and productivity.

According to an International Computer Security Association (ICSA®) survey, email attachments are the most common sources of infections. Macro viruses, worms, and other malicious code can come in through email to slow down and debilitate your system. For example, infectors such as the Winword Concept macro virus and the Melissa virus have become among the fastest spreading viruses in history. According to the ICSA, the well-known LoveLetter virus is a mass-mailer, and therefore has the potential to spread quickly. The virus arrives as a VBS file attached to an email message.

A 1996 ICSA survey states that macro viruses comprise 49 percent of all viruses detected. Until the Winword Concept virus was born, most viruses lived in and infected only executable regions of magnetic media (like boot sectors) and files (like .EXE, .COM, .BIN, and so on). Now macro viruses have become a common method of delivering infectors. Macro viruses can inhabit and attach themselves to the NORMAL.DOT template of Microsoft Word files on Windows operating systems. Other types of damaging infectors have also become widespread, and variations appear all the time.

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