Sophos Email Security and Data Protection

Overview:

SAV Interface enables end users, software vendors, hardware vendors, ISPs and ASPs to rapidly integrate Sophos virus detection into their own industry-standard applications and solutions. This integration with the Sophos virus engine enables all malware to be detected, while minimal overheads make it ideal for highperformance environments.

Benefits & Features

• Provides users of third-party applications with fast-track integration with the award-winning Sophos virus detection engine
• Allows compliant gateway applications to monitor email, web, and FTP traffic in real time
• Allows endpoint applications to monitor and scan files on demand, and as they are accessed
• Detects known and unknown threats, including viruses, Trojans, worms, spyware and adware
• Detects malware in compressed email attachments, including recursive archives
• Protects with no impact on end-user productivity
• Improves performance significantly over traditional command-line virus scanners
• Enables easy integration using various methods and languages
• Alerts administrators when a virus has been detected
• Receives small (about 5 KB) updates automatically with the latest protection from SophosLabs™ a global network of threat analysis centers
• Eliminates excess memory usage by using a single, multi-threading copy of the virus detection engine to process all requests
• Includes 24x7x365 support for the duration of the license and Sophos can be contacted for one-to-one assistance at any time

Seamless integration

• SAV Interface enables users to protect their network from viruses, Trojans, worms, spyware and adware.
• All traffic entering or leaving through the third-party application – for example, web or email traffic, including compressed attachments – is checked for malware.
• Sophos Genotype® virus detection technology proactively blocks families of viruses, and Behavioral Genotype Protection automatically guards against zero-day threats by analyzing the behavior of the code before it executes.
• Automatic malware updates from SophosLabs maintains the best available protection without disrupting the network.
• A choice of integration methods are available to suit all skills and programming environments.

Simplified administration

• SAV Interface requires only one copy of the virus information database to service all requests.
• There is no need for the frequent loading and re-initialization required by commandline based scanners.
• Virus protection can be kept up to date automatically.

Innovative technologies

• A range of technologies, including Dynamic Code Analysis™, pattern matching, emulation, and heuristics, automatically check for malicious code.
• Genotype virus-detection technology proactively blocks families of viruses.
• Behavioral Genotype® Protection is our built-in intrusion prevention technology. Proactively protecting against zero-day malware, it detects new threats before code even begins to execute.
• Sophos behavioural rulesets are constantly validated against an extensive library of legitimate applications, to ensure accurate detection.
• Ensures computers remain protected during updating by using “hot updating” technology.

Interface

• Choice of directly linked (SAV Interface SDK) or daemon process (SAV Dynamic Interface).
• SAV Interface SDK uses a COM-based C/C++ interface across all versions for cross-platform consistency. Third-party applications use callback functions in the SAV Interface library to interface to the virus detection engine.
• SAV Dynamic Interface provides a general-purpose interface that can integrate using any language.

Mode of operation

• Windows® COM-compliant Dynamic Link Library (DLL) or out-of process non-compliant service.
• Mac OS X: Framework.
• UNIX platforms, OpenVMS: shared library, supplied in binary form or networking APIs.
• NetWare: NetWare Loadable Modules (NLMs).

Scanning speed

• 20–30 times improvement over use of command-line scanner.
• Typical file scan time in normal mode <20ms.

Industry-leading expertise 24/7

• Our 24/7 customer support operation is highly acclaimed, while SophosLabs, our global network of threat analysis centers, provides a rapid reponse to emerging and evolving threats.

Platforms supported:

• Windows
  Windows 2000/XP/2003/Vista
  Windows 95/98/Me and NT4
• Mac OS X
  OS X 10.2/10.3/10.4
• Linux on Intel
  Red Hat 5.1/5.2/6.0/6.1/7.2/8.0/ 9.0, RHEL 2.1/3/4 SUSE 6/7/8/9.0/9.1/9.2/ 9.3/10.0, Enterprise Server 8/9 TurboLinux 6/7/8/10
• Linux on Cavium Octeon
• FreeBSD
  3.0/3.4/4.0/4.5/4.8/5.1/5.2/5.3/ 5.4/6/6.1 on Intel, 6.0 on AMD64
• OpenBSD
  3.6/3.7/3.8 on Intel and on AMD64
• HP-UX
  10.20/11.0/11.11/11.23 on HP-PA, 11.23 on Itanium 2
• AIX
  4.2/5.1/5.2/5.3 on PowerPC
• Solaris
  Solaris 7/8/9/10 on Intel
  Solaris 8/9/10 on SPARC
  Sun OS 5.6 on SPARC
• SCO
  UnixWare 7.0 to 7.1.4 on Intel
  OpenServer 5.0.5/5.0.7/6 on Intel
• OpenVMS
  5.4-3 on VAX
  1.5 to 7.x on Alpha
  8.2 on Itanium 2
• NetWare
   4.2/5.0/5.1/6.0/6.5, Open Enterprise Server

Disk space: 10–12 MB
Memory: 25–30 MB RAM

Documentation:

Download the Sophos SAV Interface Datasheet (PDF).