Antivirus and
Email Filtering

Antivirus is a kind of software used to prevent, scan, detect and delete viruses from a computer. Once installed, most antivirus software runs automatically in the background to provide real-time protection against virus attacks.

Comprehensive virus protection programs help protect your files and hardware from malware, such as worms, trojan horses and spyware, and may also offer additional protection such as customisable firewalls and website blocking.

Antivirus software begins operating by checking your computer programs and files against a database of known types of malware. Since new viruses are constantly created and distributed by hackers, it will also scan computers for the possibility of new or unknown types of malware threats.

Typically, most programs will use three different detection devices: specific detection, which identifies known malware; generic detection, which looks for known parts or types of malware or patterns that are related by a common codebase; and heuristic detection, which scans for unknown viruses by identifying known suspicious file structures. When the program finds a file that contains a virus, it will usually quarantine it and/or mark it for deletion, making it inaccessible and removing the risk to your device.

Firewalls are software or hardware that work as a filtration system for the data attempting to enter your computer or network. Firewalls scan packets for malicious code or attack vectors that have already been identified as established threats. Should a data packet be flagged and determined to be a security risk, the firewall prevents it from entering the network or reaching your computer.

There are several different ways security firewalls can monitor and regulate network traffic. These methods can include:

• Packet Filtering: Packets are small amounts of data. When a firewall uses packet filtering, the packets attempting to enter the network are run against a group of filters. These filters remove the packets that match certain identified threats and allow the others through to their intended destination.
• Proxy Service: These firewalls are incredibly secure, but they come with their own drawbacks. They work more slowly than other types of firewalls and are often limited with regard to the sorts of applications they can support. Instead of serving as a filtration system that data passes through, proxy servers function as go-betweens. By essentially creating a mirror of the computer behind the firewall, they prevent direct connections between the customer device and the incoming packets, protecting your network location from potential bad actors.
• Stateful Inspection: Where static filtering examines the packet headers, stateful inspection firewalls examine a variety of elements of each data packet and compare them to a database of trusted information. These elements include source and destination IP addresses, ports, and applications. Incoming data packets are required to sufficiently match the trusted information in order to be allowed through the firewall. Stateful inspection is a newer method of firewall filtering.

By putting protective filters in place around your network and devices, Firewalls can help to prevent a number of different security risks. These can include:

• Backdoors: While certain applications are designed to be accessed remotely, others may have bugs that give potential hackers a “backdoor,” or a hidden way to access and exploit the program for malicious purposes. Some operating systems may also contain bugs that provide backdoors for skilled hackers to manipulate to their own benefit.
• Denial of Service: This increasingly popular type of cyber attack can slow or crash a server. Hackers utilize this method by requesting to connect to the server, which sends an acknowledgement and attempts to establish a connection. However, as part of the attack, the server will not be able to locate the system that initiated the request. Flooding a server with these one-sided session requests allows a hacker to slow down server performance or take it offline entirely. While there are ways firewalls can be used to identify and protect against certain forms of denial of service attacks, they tend to be easily fooled and are usually ineffective. For this reason, it’s important to have a variety of security measures in place to protect your network from different types of attacks.
• Macros: Macros are scripts that applications can run to streamline a series of complicated procedures into one executable rule. Should a hacker gain access to your customers’ devices, they can run their own macros within the applications. This can have drastic effects, ranging from data loss to system failure. These executable fragments can also be embedded data attempting to enter your network, which firewalls can help identify and discard.
• Remote Logins: Remote logins can vary in severity but always refer to someone connecting to and controlling your computer. They can be a useful technique for allowing IT professionals to quickly update something on a specific device without being physically present—but if performed by bad actors, they can be used to access sensitive files or even execute unwanted programs.
• Spam: While most spam is harmless, some spam can also be incredibly malicious. Spam often will include links—which should absolutely never be clicked! By following links in spam mail, users may accept cookies onto their systems that create backdoor functionality for hackers. It is important that your customers receive cybersecurity awareness training in order to reduce vulnerabilities from within their network.
• Viruses: Viruses are small programs that replicate themselves from computer to computer, allowing them to spread between devices and across networks. The threat posed by some viruses can be relatively small, but others are capable of doing more damage— such as erasing your customers’ data. Some firewalls include virus protection, but using a firewall alongside antivirus software is a smarter and more secure choice.

Anti-Spam:

• To have a robust and reliable anti-spam measure in place.

Inbound Email Filtering:

• To save yourself from outside attacks such as phishing, malware, suspicious contents, etc.
• To save your employees, clients, and other related business entities from crippling losses.

Outbound Filtering:

• To build a positive reputation by ensuring that no spam or malicious content goes out in your name.

Productivity:

• To boost productivity in your organisation by automating your email categorisation process

An email filter is a type of program that filters and separates emails into different folders based on specified criteria. It provides a way to organise emails into different categories automatically, such as separate folders or locations for work, personal, subscriptions and other services.