Data Fellows Announces F-Secure Anti-Virus Macro Control

New product uses unique approach to detect proliferating macro viruses

Helsinki, Finland/San Jose, Calif. October 1, 1997-- -- Data Fellows, maker of the F-PROT Professional anti-virus and data security toolkit, today introduced F-Secure Anti-Virus Macro Control. This product is the first to specifically address the problem of macro viruses by certification--that is, by using a list of macros approved by a network administrator. This way, the administrator can allow only known macros to be used in the company - unknown macros will be locked out. Using Data Fellows proprietary technology to authenticate macros from the network administrators’ central console, F-Secure Anti-Virus Macro Control can easily propagate trusted database information to every workstation.

This powerful technique works simply, yet elegantly. When a document containing macros is opened, copied or created, and F-Secure Anti-Virus Macro Control is present, all macros present in the document are checked against a series of authentication databases. First, the authentication checks for known macro viruses. Second, the system checks for generally known macros such as "smart templates" or commercial templates that are supplied by third party companies. And finally, F-Secure Macro Control checks for locally known macros that have been created for the general use within an organization. If a known macro virus is found, the user is alerted and the predefined action is taken. The administrator, in advance of deploying F-Secure Macro Control throughout the organization, sets this predefined action.

To give an idea of the problem's scope, the National Computer Security Association's (NCSA) notes that 80% of all virus infections in the last year were macro viruses. In independent research, IBM concurs that macro viruses are the fastest rising and most widespread of all virus categories. An astounding 49% of those the NCSA surveyed had the Word.concept virus four of the top 10 viruses reported were macro viruses.

F-Secure Anti-Virus Macro Control is one of a number of new anti-virus products introduced today by Data Fellows. Under this new umbrella of anti-virus solutions are these products:

F-Secure Anti-Virus a complete line of anti-virus client and server product that is the first line of software to combine multiple scanning engines in a single framework. This technological approach, named CounterSignä is a revolutionary departure from traditional anti-virus utilities.

F-Secure Anti-Virus for Firewalls scans and removes viruses before they enter a network. This product is OPSEC compliant with seamless integration achieved via CVP (Content Vectoring Protocol).

F-Secure Anti-Virus E-Mail Gateway, delivers SMTP e-mail anti-virus protection to stop viruses at the gateway.