May has been the busiest month ever for the MessageLabs' Global Network that powers YKScan. More than 77,000 viruses have been stopped so far, paling the previous high of 46,291 viruses stopped in February. The culprits included two viruses never seen before and the re-appearance of w32/Magistr-mm, which originally broke out of Spain back in March and has now hit 136 countries. The new viruses were the now well-publicised Homepage and VBS/Mawanella.A-mm - a worm emanating from Sri Lanka.
Homepage was by far the most serious, flinging more than 39,000 copies across 77 countries - with more than 4,000 going to/from Hong Kong and Taiwan. Of course, these figures are for those viruses intercepted by MessageLabs and YKScan, so our customers were not automatically directed to a Dutch porn site - unlike many thousands of other email users around the globe.
The appearance VBS/Mawanella.A-mm once again proved that the belts-and-braces approach with multiple scanning engines is vital to ensuring total protection. While Homepage was stopped by two of the four engines used, the Sri Lankan virus wormed its way through conventional defences only to run up against Skeptic. Just as in the LoveBug outbreak, Skeptic - MessageLabs' unique heuristics scanning technology used by YKScan - was the first to detect and stop a previously unknown virus.
While May has starkly shown the increasing trend of growing numbers of viruses traversing the Internet, we are happy to report that not a single one of YKScan customers was hit. MessageLabs' 100% record remains intact.