Securing Business Emails Against Email Viruses

 You've likely heard of email viruses and the aggravation they are notorious for causing, but are you aware that they can compromise sensitive data, harm hardware, and waste critical resources? User-downloaded viruses are extremely prevalent, accounting for 2 million to 5 million attacks per day.

The company's current reliability on email services has been revolutionary for cybercriminals as email has become the most common method for them to distribute their viruses. Computer codes that instruct a computer to do harmful actions. This has led to the development of many types of dangerous email viruses in the wild, many of which are linked to phishing attacks and rely on user naivete to infect devices and spread to others.

Others are hidden in stealthy social engineering attacks and employ advanced techniques, like masquerading as a seemingly harmless file by changing its signature. These viruses are highly difficult to detect and avoid for even the most tech-savvy individuals. Let Guardian Digital educate you on the types of email viruses you should be on the lookout for so you and your company can prevent disruptive, costly infections.

Boot sector viruses. For the majority of users, this type of virus is one of the most dangerous types that exist. These viruses spread on the master boot record, the first part of a computer's hard drive that is responsible for loading up a computer's operating system.

This variant can be thought of as the speedy virus because it executes before a computer's security software can activate. Since these viruses are in the computer's loading process, making them very difficult to remove and frequently resulting in full system reformat.

Direct action viruses. This type of virus is one of the two main types that infect files. These viruses work by attaching to executable files rather than hiding in a computer's memory or installing themselves. When a user clicks on the virus's file, the attached virus is activated and affects other files on one's computer or even on one's network to spread to other devices. Although direct-action viruses make files inaccessible, they don't affect a system's performance.

Resident viruses. Like direct action viruses, resident viruses, infect files. However, this type of virus installs itself on a PC's random access memory, also known as RAM. By installing in a computer's memory, this virus can activate to infect files and spread to others without relying on someone to execute a particular file, making this virus more intimidating.

These viruses are especially dangerous, hence their name, resident viruses. They are designed to stay in one's computer for a long time, as they can persist even after the primary source of the virus is removed.

Having an email security solution capable of identifying and intercepting email viruses and other malicious threats in real-time can mitigate risk and provide you and your organization with peace of mind. EnGarde Cloud Email Security technology from Guardian Digital makes email safe for business, leveraging technology that proactively learns and distributes defenses for the specific threats targeting your company along with the expert, ongoing system management required to keep your business secure.

Multipartite viruses. This type of virus can spread in various ways and can behave in a different manner, depending on factors such as a PC's operating system.

These viruses are a hybrid of all the viruses mentioned previously, as they infect the boot sector as well as files on the computer, can spread extremely rapidly, and can be very difficult to remove as a result.

Key loggers. A key logger is a type of spyware that, when installed on a device, enables a malicious actor to track and log the keys that the user strikes on their keyboard, capturing information that is typed, such as personal and financial data, pin codes and account numbers, credit card numbers, usernames, passwords, and other sensitive data without the user's knowledge. This information can be used to commit fraud or identity theft.

Polymorphic viruses. Perhaps the arch nemesis of traditional antivirus software, this type of virus changes its signature every single time. It reproduces, masquerading as a different and seemingly harmless file. These viruses are especially threatening because antivirus programs have a very hard time detecting them. Because traditional antivirus software can only blacklist a single virus variant, many programs take months to identify a single polymorphic virus.