The
Email >
Reporting > Outbreak Filters page shows information about recent
outbreaks and messages quarantined due to Outbreak Filters. You can use this
page to monitor your defense against targeted virus, scam, and phishing
attacks.
Use the Outbreak
Filters page to answer the following types of questions:
- How many messages are
quarantined and by which Outbreak Filters rule?
- How much lead time has the
Outbreak Filters feature been providing for virus outbreaks?
- How do the local outbreaks
compare to the global outbreaks?
- How long do messages stay in
the Outbreak Quarantine?
- Which potentially malicious
URLs are most frequently seen?
The Threats By Type
section shows the different types of threat messages received by the appliance.
The Threat Summary section shows a breakdown of the messages by Virus, Phish,
and Scam.
The Past Year
Outbreak Summary lists global as well as local outbreaks over the past year,
allowing you to compare local network trends to global trends. The listing of
global outbreaks is a superset of all outbreaks, both viral and non-viral,
whereas local outbreaks are limited to virus outbreaks that have affected your
appliance. Local outbreak data does not include non-viral threats. Global
outbreak data represents all outbreaks detected by the Threat Operations Center
which exceeded the currently configured threshold for the outbreak quarantine.
Local outbreak data represents all virus outbreaks detected on this appliance
which exceeded the currently configured threshold for the outbreak quarantine.
The Total Local Protection Time is always based on the difference between when
each virus outbreak was detected by the Threat Operations Center and the
release of an anti-virus signature by a major vendor. Note that not every
global outbreak affects your appliance. A value of “--” indicates either a
protection time does not exist, or the signature times were not available from
the anti-virus vendors (some vendors may not report signature times). This does
not indicate a protection time of zero, rather it means that the information
required to calculate the protection time is not available.
The Quarantined
Messages section summarizes Outbreak Filters quarantining, and is a useful
gauge of how many potential threat messages Outbreak Filters are catching.
Quarantined messages are counted at time of release. Typically, messages will
be quarantined before anti-virus and anti-spam rules are available. When
released, they will be scanned by the anti-virus and anti-spam software and
determined to be positive or clean. Because of the dynamic nature of Outbreak
tracking, the rule under which a message is quarantined (and even the
associated outbreak) may change while the message is in the quarantine.
Counting the messages at the time of release (rather than the time of entry
into the quarantine) avoids the confusion of having counts that increase and
decrease.
The Threat Details
listing displays information about specific outbreaks, including the threat
category (virus, scam, or phishing), threat name, a description of the threat,
and the number of messages identified. For virus outbreaks, the Past Year Virus
Outbreaks include the Outbreak name and ID, time and date a virus outbreak was
first seen globally, the protection time provided by Outbreak filters, and the
number of quarantined messages. You can choose whether to view global or local
outbreaks.
The First Seen
Globally time is determined by the Threat Operations Center, based on data from
the SenderBase, the world’s largest email and web traffic monitoring network.
The Protection Time is based on the difference between when each threat was
detected by the Threat Operations Center and the release of an anti-virus
signature by a major vendor.
A value of “--”
indicates either a protection time does not exist, or the signature times were
not available from the anti-virus vendors (some vendors may not report
signature times). This does not indicate a protection time of zero. Rather, it
means that the information required to calculate the protection time is not
available.
Other modules on this
page provide:
- The number of incoming
messages processed by Outbreak Filters in the selected time period.
Non-viral threats
include phishing emails, scams, and malware distribution using links to an
external website.
- Severity of threats caught
by Outbreak Filters.
Level 5 threats are
severe in scope or impact, while Level 1 represents low threat risk. For
descriptions of threat levels, see the online help or user guide for your Email
Security appliance.
- Length of time messages
spent in the Outbreak Quarantine.
This duration is
determined by the time it takes the system to compile enough data about the
potential threat to make a verdict on its safety. Messages with viral threats
typically spend more time in the quarantine than those with non-viral threats,
because they must wait for anti-virus program updates. The maximum retention
time that you specify for each mail policy is also reflected.
- The URLs most frequently rewritten to
redirect message recipients to the Cisco Web Security Proxy for click-time
evaluation of the site if and when the recipient clicks a potentially malicious
link in a message.
This list may include
URLs that are not malicious, because if any URL in a message is deemed
malicious, then all URLs in the message are rewritten.
 Note |
In order to
correctly populate the tables on the Outbreak Filters reporting page, the
appliance must be able to communicate with the Cisco update servers specified
in
Management Appliance > System Administration >
Update Settings.
|
For more information,
see the Outbreak Filters chapter.