PUREmail, first to detect MyDoom virus
By siliconindia   |   Monday, 02 February 2004, 20:30 IST
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CALIFORNIA: Silicon Valley entrepreneur Raj Baronia and his engineers were examining their email server logs last weekend and found something suspicious – a message was flagged as an unfamiliar virus by their PUREmail software, which detects and blocks spam and viruses. They had never seen or heard of this kind of virus before. They checked references on goggle and web-sites of major anti-virus companies and other online resources for any information about this new virus, and found nothing there. By next day, the entire world knew that a new email virus was creating havoc on the Internet… the same virus PUREmail had detected a few days earlier… "MyDoom", the latest scourge of the cyberspace, and certainly not the last. "Despite the gloom MyDoom is causing the world, I was pleased that PUREmail passed a critical test, protecting our customers from unknown and known threats, and delivering on PUREmail’s promise of “Just What You Want!”, reports Baronia. Virus detection isn’t even the primary focus of PUREmail. "Our competitive edge has always been in detecting “SPAM”, and providing better tools to manage that", said Baronia. "By analyzing certain patterns it is relatively easy to detect viruses, and anti-virus technology has become fairly mature. On the other hand, anti-spam technology is still in its infancy and must address much broader, personal needs and preferences of end-users." Many anti-spam and virus detection methodologies are based upon pattern matching - flagging an email as junk if a suspect keyword is found. The problem with filtering “SPAM” is that the definition of junk is highly subjective. What is junk for one person, may be useful for another person. Most anti-spam products in the market take a One-Size-Fits-All approach to email filtering, making a blanket assumption that all un-solicited email is un-desired. In reality, individual consumers react differently to un-solicited marketing campaigns, depending upon their relevance. For example, a travel enthusiast may welcome unsolicited email about low airfares and vacation packages… a computer enthusiast may want to know about new software. Ironically, a legitimate email communication between a patient and his doctor/pharmacist may include the word "Viagra", which would be automatically filtered out as junk by most anti-spam products. In a similar case, as Baronia found out while testing an anti-spam product, an email containing the word “Bombay” was rejected because it matched “bomb”. In other cases, important email may be filtered out simply because the sender is not “registered” with the recipient. In contrast, PUREmail applies user preferences and artificial intelligence to determine the overall context of the entire email content. "That is why PUREmail is unique. It empowers the individual user with full control and personalized preferences", stressed Baronia, "PUREmail is completely customizable at the individual level - the user decides what kind of Email is Wanted or Un-wanted". Quite fittingly, PUREmail’s slogan is “Just What You Want!”

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