Monday, 16 August 2004 21:02 EST

August 16, 2004 - FrontBridge Technologies Inc., the leader in enterprise message management and email security, today announced that in July the company's TrueProtect(TM) spam and virus filtering service blocked 40 million e-mail borne viruses.

According to the FrontBridge spam and virus analysis team, the most prevalent email borne threat in July continued to be Netsky.P, representing approximately 25 per cent of all virus and worm traffic. When the MyDoom.O variant was discovered on July 26, FrontBridge stopped more than 200,000 copies within the first 24 hours.

Malware distributors use a variety of techniques in order to exploit victims, including the promise of illicit or provocative pictures or masquerading as patches or virus removal tools. The social engineering employed can even include fear-provoking messages. The MyDoom worms, for example, often arrive in users' inboxes disguised as warnings from their ISP or system administrator or as bounced and rejected messages.

Much of the malware that finds its way onto a user's system has the ability to contribute to the plague of spam bogging down mail clients and servers worldwide. Beginning in January 2003, some email worms - notoriously the Sobig family - were armed with spam proxies that were left behind on infected systems even after the worm itself was removed. In an effort to remain anonymous, criminal spammers rely on compromised systems, known as "zombies" to do their dirty work. By combining the forces of these zombied systems, the spammers are able to generate exponential spam volume - and capture additional email addresses from the infected systems as well.

"With the convergence of spam and malicious code, it is even easier for criminals to penetrate any company," said Dan Nadir, vice president of product management for FrontBridge. "Enterprises need to rethink their preventative measures. After all, a single uninformed user within an organisation can unwittingly compromise the entire enterprise by responding to these malicious email enticements."


About FrontBridge Technologies
FrontBridge Technologies Inc. is the market leader for enterprise message management and security services. The company's SMART network - a proven, reliable, on-demand, globally distributed network of secure data centers - provides a frontline defense against spam, viruses and malicious e-mail-borne attacks with unmatched security, performance and reliability. FrontBridge was the first company to guarantee 99.999 percent service level agreements (SLA) and the only company with a track record of 100 percent uptime.

Now in its fifth year of operation, FrontBridge, with headquarters in Marina del Rey, Calif., provides message management and security for more than 2,100 enterprises globally. Our technical anti-virus partners include Sophos, Symantec, and Trend Micro. Visit us on the Web at www.FrontBridge.com or call or in the UK,

SMART Network and TrueProtect are trademarks of FrontBridge Technologies. VeriSign Email Security Service is a trademark of VeriSign