Real-time Protection Against Emerging Virus Attacks

As email-borne viruses become increasingly malicious and proliferate more rapidly across the network, enterprises need new forms of protection at the very earliest stages of a new virus attack. The Proofpoint Zero-Hour Anti-Virus™ module, a component of the Proofpoint Messaging Security Gateway and Proofpoint Protection Server, protects enterprises against new viruses and other forms of malicious code during the critical first hours after new viruses are released and before anti-virus signatures have been updated.

To protect large organizations from emerging virus attacks, Proofpoint Zero-Hour Anti-Virus combines global analysis of internet traffic patterns with local containment of suspicious messages and attachments. Proofpoint Zero-Hour Anti-Virus constantly analyzes millions of internet messages for anomalies that indicate a potential virus attack. Advanced pattern recognition technology is used to identify new viruses within minutes of their mass distribution over the internet with greater than 95% accuracy.

At the customer’s site, Proofpoint Zero-Hour Anti-Virus analyzes incoming messages for similarities with suspected virus messages. Messages and attachments that exhibit recurrent pattern characteristics of the emerging virus are automatically quarantined at the enterprise gateway where they can be held until the availability of a production-ready virus signature.

Closing the Zero-Hour Gap

Proofpoint Zero-Hour Anti-Virus technology identifies new virus activity and takes preventive action at the earliest stages of a virus outbreak, keeping your messaging systems safe until updated anti-virus signatures are updated. Proofpoint's solution provides protection from viruses hours before competing “outbreak filters” react.

In the case of the recent outbreak of the Lebreat worm (also known as Breatle.A), Proofpoint technology identified the worm’s activity 4 hours before competing zero-hour solutions started blocking affected attachments and more than 10 hours before many signature-based anti-virus products issued updated signatures. Additionally, Proofpoint distributed updated signatures to Proofpoint Virus Protection module customers—fully protecting them from the Lebreat worm - more than 30 minutes before competing “early warning” system even began to respond.

Customizable Zero-Hour Protection Policies

Proofpoint customers can easily customize their zero-hour anti-virus policies using the Proofpoint Messaging Security Console™, a convenient graphical user interface to all Proofpoint policy management, system administration and reporting features. Based on these flexible, customer-configurable policies, messages identified as part of a virus outbreak can be automatically re-scanned and cleaned, deleted, released or otherwise disposed of based on the availability of updated virus signatures and other conditions.

Precise Detection, Minimal Disruption

Unlike other virus outbreak solutions, Proofpoint Zero-Hour Anti-Virus accurately detects and quarantines only those messages associated with an emerging virus, without stopping legitimate email. Instead of quarantining all email with attachment types deemed to be dangerous, Proofpoint’s solution temporarily delays only specific messages that are classified as being part of an emerging outbreak. Proofpoint’s techniques result in immediate protection from new viruses with a minimal impact on the normal flow of business email.