Methods of Scanning Email Viruses: Applying TRIZ to Improve Anti-Virus Programs

Abstract

An email virus makes use of the email technology and attaches itself to an email to transfer itself from one computer to another. Some email viruses create and send new emails using the address book of the victim computer. The email viruses are a matter of concern as they can spread very fast via emails to different geographical locations. The conventional scanners are file based and not good for scanning emails as the emails can contain different types of files as attachments. Besides they cannot detect viruses until the emails are downloaded and opened by the recipient in order to be scanned in the receiver’s machine. Scanning emails on the email servers is difficult as the emails on email servers are encrypted for privacy purposes and not accessible to virus scanners. Besides, detecting virus emails is confusing as they often originate from genuine addresses. The advanced virus scanners use various special techniques to scan the emails at various stages on the way before the infected mails can reach the recipient. The advanced methods not only deal with email virus detection and removal but also detect and control the outbreaks of email viruses.