Today anti-virus technologies dependent on updating their virus signature files to be effective are largely obsolete because of increasing zero-day exploits that attack before the signature file can be updated. To overcome this limitation, next-generation anti-virus technologies that integrate intrusion prevention to counter unknown and zero-day attacks have emerged.

Organisations need to undergo a paradigm shift in focus from anti-virus to worm containment strategies. Today, malicious code defence infrastructures are proving ineffective because innovative paths of ingress are being used by viruses and worms to infiltrate IT infrastructures. There is a growing proliferation of Instant Messaging and Peer-to-Peer networking viruses and worms. Malicious code is also being encapsulated within other protocols to enable them to tunnel through Anti-Virus defences. Social engineering is becoming a prominent mode of spread, against which technology is ineffective. There is a growing threat to organisational information and email systems from spam, viruses, worms, phishing and direct attacks.

The threat environment is rapidly and inexorably worsening. Unless kept in sync, existing organisational malicious code defence infrastructures will get obsolete if not already so. SecureSynergy's Malicious Code Management Service works towards developing malicious code management strategies for protecting an organisation's information systems based on an assessment of risks and vulnerabilities, and the changing threat environment. The Service encompasses the following: