SoBig.F Intercepted 5.8 Million Times - Carry Over From August Outbreak

PISCATAWAY, NJ, October 13, 2003 – MailWatch (www.MailWatch.com), a leading Spam-blocking, virus-scanning and content-filtering service protecting corporate networks worldwide, today announced the total, and most frequently occurring virus threats it intercepted on behalf of its corporate customer base during September. The company also announced that it scanned 110 million messages in August for its customers, a 7% increase over August’s total. In September, MailWatch intercepted a total of 6,457,962 virus instances from entering corporate networks. This represents over a 10% decrease over August’s total but remains an extremely high level of virus activity, driven in both months by the Sobig.f virus and its variants. The top ten viruses blocked by MailWatch in September were:

Virus Name Quantity Detected
W32/Sobig.f@MM 3,053,040
W32/Sobig.f@MM (ED) 2,827,127
W32/Swen@MM (ED) 221,004
W32/Dumaru.a@MM 119,539
W32/Mimail@MM 98,507
W32/Klez.h@MM 66,907
W32/Bugbear.b@MM 18,314
W32/Bugbear.b.dam 10,633
W32/Sobig.dam 7,890
W32/Fizzer.gen@MM 7,745
W32/Klez.dam 7,431
W32/Sobig.a@MM 6,073
W32/Yaha.p@MM 4,742
W32/Yaha.q@MM 4,564
W32/Yaha.g@MM 4,446

Bill Fallon, Vice President of Product Marketing at EasyLink Services Corporation, the company that offers and operates MailWatch, noted, “Sobig.f introduced a method of sending very high volumes of virus-infected spam mail very quickly. We intercepted close to six million instances of this virus during September, primarily in the first two weeks of the month. Just last week we intercepted over 14,000 instances of Sobig, so it is still around, but clearly losing steam. MailWatch continues to block all of these messages from infecting computers on our customer’s networks, but thousands of companies, even those who had deployed virus protection on their desktop computers and e-mail systems were swamped by all of this fusion of viruses and spam entering their networks. They then had the tedious task of removing the SoBig.F virus from each infected computer. This removal cost is at least $75 per computer according to one of our large customers who used to have this problem.” Fallon added “ It’s clear that dealing with attacks of this sort as well as the daily onslaught of Spam are now a part of the cost of being an Internet-connected business today. MailWatch helps businesses of all sizes dramatically reduce this cost.”

About MailWatch
MailWatch (www.MailWatch.com) is a leading virus protection, Spam control and content filtering service protecting corporate networks worldwide. Using highly advanced anti-virus technology to detect over 71,000 known viruses and their variants, MailWatch effectively detects e-mail messages and attachments with embedded viruses and stops them from entering enterprise networks. In addition to virus protection, MailWatch’s Spam control blocks unsolicited e-mail and its content-filtering feature protects users against unwanted or offensive e-mail messages.

This news release may contain statements of a forward-looking nature relating to the future events or the future financial results of EasyLink. Investors are cautioned that such statements are only predictions and that actual events or results may differ materially. In evaluating such statements, investors should specifically consider the various factors which could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those indicated from such forward-looking statements, including the matters set forth in the Company's reports and documents filed from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

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Contact:
Will Clarke/Fiona Newbery
Insight Marketing
Tel: 01625 500800
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