July 27, 2005
Osterman Survey Points Up Anti-Virus Dissatisfaction
Enterprise customers want better zero-hour protection from new e-mail-borne malware attacks.
Commtouch announced an Osterman Research survey that shows that even though every enterprise has some form of anti-virus (AV) protection in place, 93% of companies have been infiltrated by at least one type of Malware. The survey was conducted within the framework of its “Messaging Security Market Trends” study.
Since signatures are fully effective once they are released, this level of vulnerability is primarily due to exposure before new signatures are released. “It is striking that more than three quarters of messaging decision-makers consider zero-hour virus protection important or extremely important in the context of protecting their messaging systems,” said Michael Osterman.
Not surprisingly, 93% of IT managers expect to obtain zero-hour protection from their current AV vendors. The majority will also consider purchasing zero-hour virus protection solutions from other sources, including their current anti-spam vendors (57%), other anti-virus vendors (44%), other anti-spam vendors (26%) or from other vendors (10%).
“There is a discrepancy between signatures’ near-perfect detection rates, and the imperfect AV protection experience of enterprises, due largely to new types of Malware, which are designed to proliferate rapidly," said Commtouch director of product marketing.
Other serious problems noted in the survey included growth in e-mail storage (65%), spam quantities (63%) and inadequate e-mail archiving (63%).
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