Security threats Toolkit
Story: Storm worm stirs up email virus chaos
100% Anti-virus gaurantee - fallacy !
I read with interest your article on the Trojan's that are going across the Internet at the moment. I am a Postini customer (having just switched recently from another provider) and I was surprised when the virus got past their detection mechanisms. I am a bit disappointed that all these companies that host AV gateway services say that they have a 100% anti-virus guarantee when in fact they do not. This is not only true of Postini but Messagelabs and Omniquad also. Their excuse is that a) it is a zero day virus and b) you have to have your service configured to their exact specification i.e. don't allow through zip files.
What company (especially a software one) seriously works without allowing through Zip files on emails? I don't think people would mind if companies said 99.999% AV guarantee with a stipulation on why that figure but to mislead people into thinking that every thing is rosy is a fallacy!
Buyers beware, make sure you read the small print, ask the right questions and study the SLA!
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