My desktop hard disk crashed a few weeks ago. We think it got a virus that brought the whole PC down. Recovery has been expensive and time-consuming. Although I had anti-virus software running on the PC, I could have avoided this whole painful experience if my network had iSolation Server from Avinti.

Unlike other anti-virus solutions, which largely rely on matching the signatures of known viruses and other malware, Avinti’s solution offers zero-hour defense against e-mail-borne threats, whether they are already identified or not. Avinti’s iSolation Server uses virtual machine technology to create a replica of the end-user's desktop, to observe the actual behavior of potentially malicious content. If a message is harmless, it gets passed along to the intended recipient.  If it acts in a malicious manner, it is quarantined where it can do no harm.

Avinti is a three-year-old privately funded company, and Symantec is one of the investors.  It’s good to see that one of the world’s largest security software companies has faith in the strategy and product Avinti has developed.  Perhaps it’s no coincidence that Symantec and Avinti products work together to create a layered approach to e-mail security.

Avinti’s specialty is stopping unidentified viruses and other malware as they attempt to enter your e-mail system.  ISolation Server works best when you pair it with anti-spam and other anti-virus applications that weed out undesirable messages and known malware before the Avinti software does its thing.  (Note: iSolation Server works with just about any anti-spam or anti-virus solutions - not just those from Symantec.)

So, for example, using the layered approach, you’ll have a spam filter that removes the high volume of spam coming in, allowing more meaningful mail to pass through.  Then an anti-virus application using pattern matching screens these messages for known viruses, Trojans and keystroke loggers.  After those problem messages are removed, remaining e-mail attachments are examined by iSolation Server, which tests the attachments in an environment that is a replica of a typical user workstation.  This software monitors actual executable behavior instead of just looking for digital signatures.  Because this environment is both virtual and isolated, no harm comes to your actual network or client PCs when a virus is encountered.

Linda Musthaler is a principal analyst with Essential Solutions Corporation.