Leading Grassroots Organization Grows by Leaps and Bounds

May 8, 2001 - The Anti-Virus Information Exchange Network (AVIEN) and its associated Early Warning System (EWS) continue to increase their growth at a fast pace. At the end of April, 2001, with just 6 months of activity, AVIEN already includes antivirus specialists who support more than 2 million end users.

AVIEN members come from all areas - government, education, industry, commerce, consulting and technology. Every day, members talk with each other about the latest threats and developments in technology to defend against malware (viruses, worms, Trojan horse programs, etc.).

"Becoming part of the AVIEN group was the best thing for our company. I can now go to bed at night without worrying about a virus outbreak the next morning. With AVIEN and the EWS program I have insight to virus issues 24 hours a day" says Scott E Ostrander, Data Security Analyst, BASF Corporation.

AVIEN is a grassroots network started from the need of organizations to receive cutting edge information, even if only tentative and general, directly from others, to help prevent infections before they infiltrate.

"While commercial alerting services definitely serve a valuable role, the information route about new malware almost always starts with the organization which first encounters it" said Robert Vibert, Moderator of AVIEN. "Information about a suspect file or strange behaviour is normally sent along to a software developer for analysis, which always takes some time to be done properly. While this analysis is underway, hundreds of other organizations can be attacked by the same malware. AVIEN's EWS reduces the chances of this happening by alerting members to a potential problem without waiting for the complete analysis to arrive."

In the first six months of the EWS, a handful of alerts have been issued. In every case, EWS subscribers were able to determine what steps to take internally to block the potential paths of the malware hours before anyone else was even talking about the latest attack.

"The membership of AVIEN covers the entire world, making it virtually impossible for a virus to go unnoticed and unannounced for more than a few hours. Nothing in our experience even approaches the speed with which we are notified of new threats. AVIEN has proven so effective that we have unsubscribed from all other alert services. The savings in time alone, of only having to monitor one service is worth many times the nominal subscription fee."
says Paul Schmehl, Supervisor, Support Services at the University of Texas at Dallas.

The EWS is open to everyone, and already counts as subscribers some commercial alerting services who like to keep an eye on what is happening. The EWS also provides access to a discussion list where the latest viruses are discussed, as well what malware is being seen each week.