Excedent Customers Protected From the Sobig.F Virus
One in 10 Emails Contain the Most Widespread Virus Ever
Vienna, Virginia (August 28, 2003) – Excedent Technologies, a global leader in business email outsourcing, anti-virus and Spam filtering solutions, today announced that it has successfully defended its customers from the latest epidemic of computer viruses and worms that have reeked havoc across the Internet in the last two weeks. The most notable virus outbreak, a new variant of Sobig, known as Sobig.F, was first discovered on August 19, 2003, and has since become the most widespread virus in history.
“At some points during business hours in the last week, more than one out of every 10 emails sent to our system was infected by the Sobig.F virus,” commented Bill Boebel, Chief Technology Officer for Excedent. “During non-business hours, that number grew to almost one in three. This is by far the largest infection I have seen and it seems like it might worsen before it gets better.”
Excedent works with industry leaders to protect customers from harmful viruses and the company was able to immediately quarantine emails containing Sobig.F. “Our virus scanners update hourly and our partners push instant updates into our system as viruses are detected and protection becomes available. This allows us to stay on top of the latest threats and provide our customers with a superior level of protection,” stated Boebel.
“The real challenge with Sobig.F was the fact that the virus was so widespread that our customers initially were becoming bogged down with our virus notification emails,” explained Patrick Matthews, Chief Executive Officer at Excedent. “Inboxes literally began filling up faster than customers could make the proper deletions. We made the quick decision to turn off notifications for the Sobig.F virus to prevent what would have essentially turned into the equivalent of a Denial of Service attack.”
Excedent provides small businesses and service providers with hosted email accounts protected from computer viruses, junk email and other nuisances spread through email. The company employs server side virus protection in order to prevent viruses from reaching customer inboxes.
About Excedent Technologies
Excedent Technologies is a global leader in outsourced business email hosting solutions. The company provides small businesses and service providers with secure, reliable, Spam-free, Virus-free email. Excedent manages and maintains this critical communication infrastructure, freeing up valuable personnel resources and eliminating the need for customers to purchase email-related software, hardware or additional bandwidth. The company is privately held and serves more than 1,000 customers worldwide. For more information on Excedent’s small business email hosting plans, please visit www.webmail.us. For more information on service provider and enterprise email solutions, please visit www.excedent.com or call 866.EXCEDENT (392.3336).