By Emeka Aginam

One of the world leaders in securing the Internet, Check Point has pledged support to stamp out cyber attacks with threat emulation , a critical technique in achieving more effective network security.

The Wired World: A graphic representation of the Internet

According to Terry Greer-King, UK Managing Director for Check Point, Check Point’s 2013 Security Report , found that 63% of organizations were infected with bots, and more than half were being infected with new malware at least once a day.

The cyber attackers, he said target thousands of companies with their attacks to increase the likelihood of success.

He assured that Check Point provides customers with uncompromised protection against all types of threats, reduces security complexity and lowers total cost of ownership.

With the growing volumes of traffic on corporate networks, and the volume of new malware being introduced and hiding in plain sight in innocuous-looking files, organisations, he said that are vulnerable to zero-day attacks.

“Rather like a border control’s X-ray scanners, the technique makes it possible to look inside suspect files arriving at the gateway, and inspect their contents in a virtualized, quarantined area known as a ‘sandbox.’ In the sandbox, the file is opened and monitored for any unusual behavior in real time, such as attempts to make abnormal registry changes or network connections.

“If its behavior is found to be suspicious or malicious, it is blocked and quarantined, preventing any possible infection before it can reach the network and cause damage” he explained. Following detection and blocking of a file in this way, he said that organizations should be able to share information about the new threat, to help others avoid infection too.

“ If companies could share information online about emerging threats when they are identified, and before they infect networks, rates of infection could drop dramatically.

“ This would help the wider business community to know at least a little about a common enemy, before it can attack them. Perhaps emulation could become one of the strongest methods for securing against new threats” he said. However, one of the problems facing businesses, he said, is new adversaries lining up every day to launch attacks, thereby disrupting operations and stealthily siphoning confidential data using a bewildering array of malware.

The attack technique most commonly used, he explained is stealthy malware which is designed to be hard to detect and operate below the radar of IT teams.