A South African company has come up with what appears to be a novel and innovative solution to combat the increasing scourge of viruses that have been bringing many companies to their knees.
Shaya Technologies, which describes itself as an information and communications technology and black economic empowerment company, thinks its solution is so innovative that it has even lodged a patent on it.
The system uses satellite technology to deliver virus fixes and updates directly to a company’s premises. Shaya Technologies says that, via this system, it delivers anti-virus updates in a faster and more secure manner than the way most companies currently rely on to protect and rid themselves of viruses.
Says Ian Melamed, principal consultant at Shaya Technologies: “In the beginning we had viruses that were benign. They were funny or friendly viruses that were no more than irritants.
“But now they are specifically targeted to cause the most amount of destruction. Each new wave of viruses seems to affect us more and more, and the reason is because companies haven’t been reacting fast enough to stop the spread.”
Traditionally, when a virus hits the Internet, anti-virus updates or patches to make a network immune to that virus are downloaded from the big anti-virus company websites or, in some rare cases, may eventually be delivered on a disk via the post.
But a major flaw in using the Internet to download a fix to combat a virus is that the same virus may have already killed a company’s Internet connection — leaving the company without any immediate means to download the fix.
When the Internet is the problem, emphasises Melamed, you can’t use it to solve the problem. He says Shaya Technologies can deliver updates so fast that a company’s anti-virus software will be updated within 60 seconds of the update being available.”The actual movement of viruses and worms is globally so fast that, unless you have an automated system in place that can block those viruses and worms, the damage is done literally within minutes,” says Melamed.
Shaya has 37 companies on its system so far, including some listed on the JSE Securities Exchange.
The system involves installing a satellite decoder, similar to that of a DSTV decoder, in a company’s office. Shaya’s decoder is then connected to the company’s network and anti-virus patches and updates will then be beamed via satellite directly to clients’ premises and automatically installed on their networks.
Web guide:
Shaya Technologies: www.shaya.co.za