SkepticTM Setting New Standards in Threat Protection

Skeptic is MessageLabs' proprietary technology ecosystem that represents a unique but essential component in the anti-malware defenses they deploy on their clients' behalf.

Predictive and proactive, Skeptic delivers unrivalled zero-hour protection from even the most sophisticated and targeted security threats, monitoring, tracking and blocking them at the internet level, well away from your network.

Totally Up-to-date, Absolutely Unique

Skeptic achieves its remarkable results by harnessing heuristics and a wide range of other leading-edge techniques to scan and assess billions of electronic communications every week. Crucially:

• Skeptic learns from every single message it scans, using this information to update itself automatically and further enhance its phenomenal threat detection capability

• Skeptic reacts instinctively and immediately to any new threat, even from previously unknown sources, and so specializes in nullifying emerging threats that evade other vendors' security solutions

Always Growing, Constantly Evolving

MessageLabs first introduced Skeptic in 1999 as an anti-virus technology and we've been investing in and improving it ever since.

Today, it comprises a total ecosystem encompassing a suite of technologies that enable us to provide unbeatable protection against ‘conventional' threats, and to offer innovative and agenda-setting Converged Threat Analysis capability.

Distinctive Features, Definite Benefits

Skeptic lies at the core of the services MessageLabs provides. It is able to deliver unmatched ability in the detection of viruses, trojans, spam and phishing, plus proven superiority over other security solutions, because:

• Skeptic does not just rely on one or a few detection techniques
• Skeptic incorporates MessageLabs' proprietary signaturing system, a ‘reputation database' collating information about message sources, and network layer techniques that detect threats earlier during scanning
• Skeptic's effectiveness increases, the greater the volume and diversity of traffic that it scans
• Threat data collected by Skeptic is shared globally across our network in real time
• Skeptic enables MessageLabs to offer unique protection against positively identified viral URL links within emails

Features like these result in direct, tangible business benefits for our clients. Efficiency, productivity, data confidentiality and legal compliance are all enhanced.

The Next Steps for SkepticTM

Looking ahead, Skeptic will carry on evolving and outstripping the ingenuity of new malware as soon as it appears, and so continue to set the benchmark in messaging and web security for business worldwide.