Barracuda Anti-Virus Technology
The Barracuda Spam & Virus Firewall, Barracuda Web Filter, and Barracuda IM Firewall provide complete virus protection. All three products operate at the gateway and will eliminate all emails and file transfers that contain any viruses. The Energize Updates provided by Barracuda Central update the latest virus definitions every hour ensuring that your organization is completely protected.
Triple Layer Anti-Virus Protection
The Barracuda Spam & Virus Firewall scans all email messages and all incoming files for viruses using three powerful layers of virus scanning technology and automatically decompresses archives for complete virus protection. Barracuda Networks triple-layer virus blocking includes powerful open source and proprietary virus definitions and Barracuda Real-Time Protection. Virus scanning takes precedence over all other mail scanning techniques, and it is applied even when mail passes through the connection management layers. As such, even email coming from "whitelisted" IP addresses or senders, or addressed to whitelisted recipients, are still scanned for viruses and blocked if a virus is detected.
Combination of Open Source and Proprietary Virus Definitions
By utilizing well-respected and effective open source virus definition lists along with Barracuda Networks own proprietary virus definitions, Barracuda Spam & Virus Firewall customers receive the best and most comprehensive virus and malware protection available. Barracuda Networks proprietary virus definitions are gathered and maintained by Barracuda Central, a 24x7 advanced technology center consisting of highly trained engineers who continuously monitor and block the latest Internet threats. By coupling this with the open source virus definitions, Barracuda Networks adds the breadth of the security community findings and reported vulnerabilities. All open source and proprietary virus definitions are delivered automatically to the Barracuda Spam & Virus Firewall via Barracuda Energize Updates.
Decompression of Archives and File Type Attachment Blocking
The Barracuda Spam & Virus Firewall unpacks and examine every individual file within 17 different types of archives. In addition, the Barracuda Spam & Virus Firewalls allows administrators to block certain types of files. Many of the commonly blocked file types frequently contain viruses, such as VB script (.vbs files).
Barracuda Real-Time Protection
Barracuda Real-Time Protection is a set of advanced technologies that enables Barracuda Spam & Virus Firewalls to immediately block the latest virus, spyware, and other malware attacks as they emerge. These capabilities provide industry-leading response times to email-borne threats by adding a third layer of antivirus protection to the Barracuda Spam & Virus Firewall.
Barracuda Real-Time Protection draws from the largest and most diverse installed base in the industry to detect early trends in email-borne threats. Once Barracuda Central engineers identify a potential virus or malware outbreak based on the frequency, diversity of sources and the metadata about the message itself, Barracuda Central validates the hypothesis by collecting samples of suspect emails from Barracuda Spam & Virus Firewalls around the world that elect to participate in data collection.
Immediately upon virus or malware classification, Barracuda Central responds to any Barracuda Spam & Virus Firewalls submitting the corresponding fingerprints with an instruction to immediately block the message, stopping the attack in real time and providing the fastest response to email-borne virus threats in the industry.
Further, after identifying new virus and other malware outbreaks, Barracuda Central automatically distributes new spam and virus definitions to all Barracuda Spam & Virus Firewalls through Energize Updates. Upon receiving the next Energize Update, the Barracuda Spam & Virus Firewall can block the virus or spam variants associated with the new outbreak via the Barracuda Spam & Virus Firewall's traditional antivirus protection layers.