London, UK, 21 July 2000 - GFI, a leading developer of email security & anti-virus software, today announced that it offers a solution to the new breed of email viruses that can spread without the user opening an email attachment. GFI's email content checking tool, Mail essentials, can be used to protect against this dangerous new threat at email server level.

"In line with security experts' predictions, each new generation of email viruses becomes more dangerous and harmful, making it necessary for organizations to tighten their email security. Now, a newly discovered vulnerability can be exploited to transmit email viruses that no longer rely on the email attachment to be opened in order to be activated," explained Nick Galea, GFI CEO.

"As a result of this Microsoft vulnerability, PCs running Internet Explorer (IE) version 5.0 and/or Microsoft Office 2000 are vulnerable to virus attacks using most HTML-enabled email systems, even if the email recipient opens no attachments."

This email security problem is caused by a programming bug in an Internet Explorer ActiveX control called scriptlet.typelib. "Unfortunately, as it is simple to exploit, it is ripe for a hugely destructive event - at least as large as the ILOVEYOU virus which struck in May," Mr. Galea added.

Traditional anti-virus programs cannot protect against this type of virus. However, Mail essentials can block emails and attachments containing VB script (such as the LoveLetter virus), Windows Scripting, Java scripts and HTML scripts at email server level. This way, as it is a content checking gateway that installs before the mail server, Mail essentials can detect and remove such emails before they can be distributed to users.

Internet Explorer and Outlook users are advised to check the Microsoft security site for the patch to deal with this hole. Network administrators should install an email content security gateway capable of detecting this virus to ensure that such emails are not passed on to the mail server.

Mail essentials is a powerful email security, content checking & anti-virus gateway that offers the following features:

• Content checking/filtering.
• Prevention of confidential info leaks.
• Virus checking of all email.
• Advanced anti-spam measures.
• Disclaimers: Enables you to add a disclaimer to each outgoing mail.
• Email management: Reports, archiving of all email, POP3 downloading & server-based auto replies.

More information can be found at http://www.gfi.com/me/index.html. The full version of Mail essentials is available from $275.

Über GFI
GFI Software bietet als führender Software-Hersteller eine umfassende Auswahl an Netzwerksicherheits-, Inhaltssicherheits- und Kommunikationslösungen aus einer Hand, um Administratoren einen reibungslosen Netzwerkbetrieb zu ermöglichen. Mit seiner mehrfach ausgezeichneten Technologie, einer konsequenten Preisstrategie und der Ausrichtung an den Anforderungen kleiner und mittlerer Unternehmen erfüllt GFI höchste Ansprüche an Effizienz und Produktivität. Das Unternehmen wurde 1992 gegründet und ist mit Niederlassungen auf Malta sowie in London, Raleigh, Hongkong, und Adelaide vertreten und betreut über 200.000 Installationen weltweit. GFI bietet seine Lösungen über ein weltweites Netz von mehr als 10.000 Channel-Partnern an und ist Microsoft Gold Certified Partner. Weitere Informationen stehen zum Abruf bereit unter http://www.gfisoftware.de.

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