In today’s world, almost every business understands the value of running anti-virus software. The problem is more than 85% of malicious malware is distributed via the Web and each variant only has an average life-span of 5-7 hours. Small and medium-sized businesses are especially vulnerable to attacks because they are less likely to have the multiple layers of protection than larger enterprises.

Anti-virus software is still essential. It works with your computer to scan the processor’s memory for patterns that could indicate an infection. With 50,000 new malware samples discovered each day, antivirus software must try to stay current by having updates installed on every users computer whenever a new virus is identified. Daily scans search for viruses and stop any newly identified infections from tainting the computer while remembering the coding to prevent the specific virus from infecting the computer again. Without antivirus to remove viral corruptions, the virus can trick your computer to become a server to send the virus to other computers. However, anti-virus software typically does not update often enough to keep up with the malware problem today.

While anti-virus software will block many of the threats that attack your system, there are additional types of threats such as malware, spy-ware, hacking, and phishing that you need protection against . Earlier this month, there was the Epsilon Data Breach that set the stage for a large scale, targeted phishing attack. Every day, businesses who are only running anti-virus software are surprised to find out that they are under-protected when faced with the consequences of a web attack which can include data loss, viruses, trojans, malware, and spyware. 82% of organizations experience regular hacking and malware attacks and, even with current anti-virus software running, 62% of these organizations have had malware successfully infiltrate their network.

Cloud-based Web Security and policy filtering is an essential part of protecting your company from the inside out. The Internet is a powerful business tool. However, if left unsecured, it can be your greatest security risk. For example, your network can be breached by an employee inadvertently clicking on a (carefully disguised) link containing malware from a legitimate website. Currently, 80% of web-borne malware is distributed through legitimate websites.

MxToolBox is an expert in email security and we do all of our spam and virus filtering in the cloud. However, we’re seeing an undeniable need for companies to protect themselves from the increasing number of attacks coming through the web. In 2007, 10,000 malware samples were discovered daily. Today 50,000 unique malware samples are discovered each day: this is double from one year ago!

At MxToolBox, we want to be part of the solution and help companies protect themselves by blocking ALL objectionable content, malicious code and malware that is rife across the Internet.