More than 5 million virus infected messages cleaned by EIM Anti Virus Service in less than three months

Through this service, EIM e-mail subscribers were protected against more than 81,000 virus threats, amongst which the mass mailer that usually increases spam problems is the most common. Recent EIM statistics show that the EIM Mail Anti Virus Service detects and cleans an average of 100,000 virus-infected e-mails per day, which protects EIM e-mail users particularly in business sector from potential losses of productivity that could amount to billions of Dirhams.

'Since viruses became a nightmare to every Internet and PC user, we have been working very hard to ensure we have a solution that will cause maximum protection to our subscribers,' commented Abdulla Hashim, Senior Manager Business Development & Sales, EIM. 'By integrating the new anti virus solution powered by the industry leader Network Associates McAfee within our e-mail infrastructure we were confident that Internet users in the UAE will experience the best products and services available on the market, and that proved to be true.'

Moawyah Al Wazeer, Marketing Manager Internet Applications, EIM, said the biggest challenge they faced since EIM launched the service on 22 December 2003 was the Mydoom virus. 'On the first day of Mydoom's global outbreak on 27 January 2004 we detected and cleaned more than 500,000 infected messages targeted to our e-mail users and since then to date more than 2.75 million messages infected by the same virus were totally cleaned,' he said.

'The most common medium used by viruses to reach PC users are e-mails and according to ICSA more than 87% of viruses spread through e-mail sources,' he added. 'Also, the anti virus solution we incorporated to our e-mail architecture is a cost saving tool to our corporate and residential users. According to recent surveys, the cost of cleaning each virus outbreak for large companies and businesses in UAE amounts to AED 80,000.'

EIM anti virus is a free service to all subscribers for a period of one year until 22 December 2004, after which subscribers will have the option either to continue with it and pay minimal fees or unsubscribe and no charges will be paid.