NUMBER OF MACRO VIRUSES NOW OVER 2000

First published: 21^st February 1998

F-Secure Anti-Virus Handles Them All

Yui Kee, Hong Kong's leading anti-virus distributor, has announced that in the beginning of February 1998, the number of known macro viruses has soared to over 2000.

Macro viruses are computer viruses written in the macro or formula language of word processing and spreadsheet application programs. They spread when infected documents are transferred. Currently, the most vulnerable applications are Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel. Viruses such as Concept, Wazzu, Npad and CAP have spread internationally.

Many macro viruses do nothing significant beyond global spreading, but some overwrite data, modify the contents of documents, and even send documents out of a company via e-mail. To complicate matters, they can also "mutate," or change their form. Macro viruses cause most of the infections in the world today.

Graph of macro virus growth no longer available
Number of macro viruses from August 1995 to February 1998

However, it is not all bad news. While viruses have become more common, the antidotes have improved as well. F-Secure Anti-Virus, the world's first open anti-virus architecture, has been tested by the international press, and the results are impressive: F-Secure
Anti-Virus has won every test it has participated in. Its superior detection rate guarantees it can handle all the known over 2000 macro viruses.

F-Secure Anti-Virus is based on the revolutionary CounterSign technology, which allows the simultaneous use of multiple scanning engines. It uses two of the world's best scanning engines, the award winning F-PROT Professional engine and AVP engine to produce outstanding results.

"On paper, it seems obvious that a product with several scanning engines should easily beat any other product using just a single engine," says Mr. Mikko Hypp䒟en, Technical Product Manager, Anti-Virus from Data Fellows. "Now this has been proven. Our products have had seven victories within 30 days. The Anti-Virus industry has never seen
anything like this."

Mr. Hypp䒟en continues: "The only way to stay up-to-date with macro viruses is to update often. F-Secure Anti-Virus is automatically updated on a daily basis."

F-Secure Anti-Virus received the following wins:

• Swedish Mikrodatorn Magazine, January 1998 review: 5 out of 5
• Finnish Tietokone Magazine, January 1998: highest score against five other leading anti-virus products, as well as Editor's Choice
• Secure Computing Magazine, January 1998: FSAV found more macro viruses than any other product in the test, and was awarded the "SC Recommended" title
• Virus Bulletin, February 1998 comparative review: VB 100% award
• Italian PC Windows Magazine, February 1998 comparative review: winner. "This is the scanner virus writers hate the most."
• Spanish PC World Magazine, February 1998 comparative review: winner and the magazine's recommendation
• Spanish PC Actual Magazine, February 1998 comparative review: winner and the magazine's recommendation.

Anyone can download the FSMACRO.DEF file from Yui Kee's or Data Fellows' web sites, and with it instantly detect and disinfect the 2000 macro viruses. This downloading can be made fully automatic, so that the latest definition files are automatically downloaded and distributed to all workstations within the organization.