Background
With more
than a decade of experience in computer viruses and malware,
and six years in hosting Internet based applications we quickly
recognised the unique benefits MessageLabs SkyScan has over
traditional anti-virus measures.
A paper
presented at the 2001 Virus Bulletin conference in Prague by
Alex Shipp (Senior Virus Researcher at MessageLabs) explained
how Skeptic, their heuristic, rules based scanner was able to
detect even unknown viruses when traditional server and desktop
scanners couldn't.
The logic is simple; MessageLabs services don't have to run
on your computers where there is a finite amount of memory and
disk space. They have all the resources they need to run the
most comprehensive scanners a virus researcher can imagine and
if they run out, they just make their systems bigger. In other
words, the quality of service you get from MessageLabs is limited
only by their ability to build their rules base, not the fact
that 10% of their customers are running Pentium's with 64 MB
of memory.
Internet level scanning is superior in its ability to scale
and its ability to protect every user within a domain. No longer
are remote users out on their own; every email belonging to
a domain name is protected. And your users can't turn it off.
Skeptic
At the heart
of MessageLabs' Email Security System lies Skeptic. Skeptic
uses patented artificial intelligence and learning from an ever-expanding
knowledge base of email security threats to identify viruses,
spam and pornography without the need for time-delayed updates
like traditional software.
Skeptic - Anti-Virus Capabilities
Skeptic
is designed to identify new viruses, both known and unknown,
without any need for signature updates. Skeptic can identify
techniques or characteristics which are indicative of an email
virus. It can identify a virus even if it is completely original
in construction, this is because it is – and you are automatically
protected from it.
Skeptic
- Anti-Spam Capabilities
Skeptic’s
artificial intelligence and dynamic learning allows us to continuously
reduce false positives and false negatives and ensure that only
real spam is eliminated. The result is a highly effective filter
mechanism, which in a recent independent evaluation came out
as the clear leader in terms of filter accuracy (96.4%). More
on Skeptic...
Global Architecture
The MessageLabs
managed services are powered by a global network of email ‘control
towers’, which currently spans Germany, Hong Kong, the
Netherlands, UK, Australia and USA. Each tower is built upon
a secure, scalable architecture, capable of handling millions
of emails every day. Currently MessageLabs scans around four
and a half million email messages per day.
