F-Secure announces Data Security Six Month Summary

Jul 07, 2005: F-Secure vigilant against spam, trojans, viruses, mobile threats, and other criminal exploits

In a year when the virus world has seen an almost 50 per cent reduction in outbreaks compared to the same time in the previous year, other malware trends continue to show no stopping. Despite the efforts of companies like F-Secure to eradicate spam from email servers and private mailboxes, this modern plague continued to spread in the first half of 2005.

Another trend in malware-writing is the rapid increase in new trojans and bots. Unlike the more indiscriminate assaults by viruses and worms, trojans can be delivered with precision to target organisations via email attachments or links to websites.

In the same time frame, mobile viruses continue to make news. So far, the worst damage has been shown by a Trojan called Skulls, a malicious SIS file Trojan that replaces the system applications with non-functional versions, so that all but the phone’s basic functionality is disabled. More worryingly for smartphone owners is the arrival of Commwarrior – a mobile virus that spreads both via Bluetooth and MMS messages, which was first reported in the wild in Ireland already in January 2005. For its part, F-Secure opened two completely refurbished state of the art data security labs, the first in mid March in its San José office and the second at the end of May at its headquarters in Helsinki.

For more information about the fight against the malware community, please visit: http://www.f-secure.com/2005/1/

About F-Secure Corporation

F-Secure Corporation is the fastest growing publicly listed company globally in the antivirus and intrusion prevention industry with more than 50% revenue growth in 2004. F-Secure services and software protect individuals and businesses against computer viruses and other threats coming through the Internet or mobile networks. Our award-winning solutions include antivirus and desktop firewall with intrusion prevention, antispam and antispyware solutions. Our key strength is our proven speed of response to new threats. For businesses our solutions feature a centrally managed and well integrated suite of solutions for workstations and servers alike. Focused partners offer security as a service for those companies that do not wish to build security expertise in-house. Founded in 1988, F-Secure has been listed on the Helsinki Exchanges since 1999. We have our headquarters in Helsinki, Finland, and offices in France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Norway, Poland, Singapore, Sweden, the United Kingdom and USA. F-Secure is supported by a global ecosystem of service partners, value added resellers and distributors in over 50 countries. F-Secure protection is also available through mobile handset manufacturers such as Nokia and as a service through major Internet Service Providers, such as Deutsche Telekom, France Telecom and Charter Communications. The latest real-time virus threat scenario news are available at the F-Secure Antivirus Research Team weblog at http://www.f-secure.com/weblog/.

Press inquiries:

F-Secure Corporation Jaana Sirkiä, Communications Manager PL 24 FIN-00181 Helsinki Tel +358 9 2520 5290 Fax. +358 9 2520 5018