Conventional anti-virus works at the file level. The software must assemble incoming files prior to scanning for malware. Trend’s product group manager John Maddison said that the company will soon release a gateway that scans at the packet level.
Over the last couple of years, worms such as Code Red and Blaster have moved independently and automatically through networks, not requiring the same kind of user intervention as, say, mass-mailer email worms.
This has caused the security industry to focus on ways to stop incoming malware before it enters enterprise networks, helping the rise of the intrusion prevention market, which combines the world of firewalls with the worlds of anti-virus and IDS.
This article is based on material originally published by ComputerWire
