F-Secure Radar – On the Lookout for You

Today’s worm and virus outbreaks happen without warning. One morning you could be happily going through new e-mails and by noon the Internet could be collapsing because a new worm has rapidly spread and infected computers around the world.

As the worm keeps knocking on your door, you have to act quickly and there might not be enough time to properly carry out all necessary precautions. Imagine how much easier and how much less damage there would have been to your organization if you had known that this would happen before it became a widespread problem.

While many threats can easily be stopped with up-to-date virus protection, some imminent threats are more easily and quickly handled with a simple firewall configuration. Knowing what is happening and what you should do immediately is usually the best way to keep your corporation and network out of harm’s way.

The F-Secure Radar alert system keeps track of worms and viruses in the wild. The F-Secure Anti-Virus Research Team is on call 24-hours a day and analyzes virus sample submissions from customers and F-Secure partners. If a sample shows signs of being particularly damaging or spreading particularly rapidly, the F-Secure Anti-Virus Research Team sends out an alert through the F-Secure Radar. F-Secure Radar subscribers are informed immediately and can act to keep the infection out of their networks and systems.

F-Secure Radar delivers instant notifications of serious security events to your device of choice. The devices can be cell phones (SMS message or voice), regular phone, fax, pager, e-mail, or any combination of these. The alert contains a short summary of the threat and a link to the F-Secure web site where you can find information about how to prevent infection. The web site is updated simultaneously as new information about the threat becomes available.

To assist you in reacting to messages appropriately, alerts are classified by F-Secure experts using a three-level system: Level 1 for critical, Level 2 for medium, and Level 3 for new threats. Alerts are sent only for levels 1 and 2. You can decide which alerts you want to receive to which device, at which time of the day and week.

On average, F-Secure has sent out a level 1 alert once every one or two months, and level 2 alerts twice a month. The virus spread alerts are sometimes upgraded from level 2 to level 1, as happened with the recent BugBear/Tanatos and Slapper worms.

For more information about F-Secure Radar, see http://www.f-secure.com/products/radar/ or send e-mail to radar-info@f-secure.com. You can also test the alert system at the web site above.


Author: Jussi Kallio, Product Manager


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