Sonera Developed in Cooperation with F-Secure an E-Mail Virus Protection Service

Helsinki, Finland - May 15, 2001

At the beginning of June, Sonera starts to offer its Internet corporate customers an e-mail virus protection service. The new value-added service enables outsourcing of e-mail virus protection service. Sonera is responsible for service maintenance, which means that the customer does not have to allocate personnel resources, system acquisitions, make software installations or virus database updates regarding the service.

The service, based on the F-Secure Anti-Virus for Internet Mail product, checks the attachment files of incoming e-mail messages as well as identifies and removes any viruses from the e-mail. In addition, if a virus in the e-mail is noticed, there will be a mention about it in the e-mail. Sonera's system retrieves the latest virus identifiers at few-hour intervals each day directly from F-Secure. Thus, the service identifies and removes even the latest viruses.

In the e-mail virus protection service, three search engines check the incoming e-mail. This way the viruses are identified more efficiently than before, and the viruses' entry into the network is prevented. The e-mail virus protection service is most suited for companies that have their own network, i.e. domain identifier and their own e-mail server.

"Prevention of viruses and other harmful software spreading via e-mail is the corner stone of a company's information security," says Vice President Markku Järvinen of Sonera. "With the help of the service, a company's e-mail users benefit from an effective and always up-to-date virus protection. When extra maintenance and administrative work are left out, the service pays itself rapidly in the form of saved costs."

"Earlier the biggest source of viruses consisted of physical media such as CD-ROMs and disks. This still constitutes a threat, but nowadays viruses enter the corporate world mainly via e-mail from the Internet. It is more efficient to delete a virus at the gateway level and prevent its penetration into the corporate network.," states Anthony Gyursanszky, Vice President of F-Secure.