Barracuda real-time protection.

Barracuda Networks, Inc., have announced Barracuda Real-Time Protection, a set of technologies that enable the Barracuda Spam Firewall to immediately block the latest virus, spyware, and other malware attacks as they emerge. Providing customers with a fast response time to email-borne threats by adding a third layer of antivirus protection to the Barracuda Spam Firewall.

Unlike traditional antivirus solutions which perform analysis against data stored on a single system, Real-Time Protection is based on data collected from thousands of global honeypots and Barracuda Spam Firewalls across the Internet. This data consists of binary signatures, or 'fingerprints,' for message components such as message bodies, email attachments and inline images. When unknown fingerprints are detected, the Spam Firewall submits these fingerprints in real-time to Barracuda Central, an advanced technology centre where engineers monitor the Internet for the latest threats and deploy solutions 24x7 to stop them.

Once Barracuda Central engineers identify a potential virus or malware outbreak based on the frequency, diversity of sources and the metadata about the message itself, Barracuda Central validates the hypothesis by collecting samples of suspect emails from Barracuda Spam Firewalls around the world that have opted-in to data collection. Immediately upon virus or malware classification, Barracuda Central responds to any Barracuda Spam Firewalls submitting the corresponding fingerprints with an instruction to immediately block the message, thus stopping the attack in real time.

www.barracuda.com/spam.