A New Dimension in Threat Protection
Converged Threat Analysis (CTA) is an innovative concept in messaging and web security, specifically designed by MessageLabs to combat a new, growing and potentially serious breed of security threats.
CTA represents an effective, proactive solution to the emergence of threats that are not specific to email, web or IM environments. These threats merge together and mix and match virus, spyware, phishing, spam and other techniques across protocols in ingenious ways to disrupt corporate networks and access confidential information.
New Thinking, Unique Capability
Pioneered by MessageLabs and unique to the solutions we provide, CTA involves analyzing threats across all protocols to see if techniques are being shared or combined to create a single threat. Underpinning CTA is:
- The linking of every individual detection and filtering mechanism that MessageLabs employs
- The automatic sharing of knowledge gained in one protocol across all other protocols
To take just one example, CTA provides an essential line of defense against potentially damaging ‘link spam’ emails. These emails contain hyperlinks to websites that automatically download malware, the ultimate target being the web browser. However, MessageLabs tracks and blocks link spam threats through our unique link-following capability, which checks all URLs in emails and identifies any malware they may contain.
The application of such leading-edge techniques, including Skeptic™, represents the foundation of our revolutionary CTA capability.
Trends Identified, Challenges Met
Converged and merging threats represent a new front line in the war against malware. Although still accounting for only a minority of threats, they nevertheless have huge potential in terms of sophistication, improved targeting and the delivery of high returns for malware perpetrators constantly searching for weaknesses in corporate defenses.
MessageLabs is convinced that such threats will become more mainstream over the next 12 to 18 months, which is why we are at the leading edge in CTA development. The days when threats could be seen in isolation – and dealt with accordingly – are over.
Fixed on the Future
Key to CTA’s ongoing effectiveness will be our ability to predict and foresee dangers. We are, for example, keenly aware that IM and also VoIP could represent increasingly potent delivery channels for converged and merging threats in the future.
We are therefore prioritizing the relentless enhancement of our threat detection capabilities in these and other fields, ensuring that CTA continues to set the agenda and provide our clients with protection levels unmatched by any other security vendor.