Artificial hygiene: a critical step towards safety from email viruses

Many viruses and Trojan horses use email as their media of propagation. There are some technologies available whereby the mail server scans and stops incoming mails containing potential viruses or Trojans; however, not all mall servers do so; as a result, devices get infected through one type of mail service in one network and in turn infect others in other networks. Within a short period, viruses multiply and spread rapidly across the networks, resulting into a digital epidemic. Because it is only a digital device that can function as a virus carrier, it must necessarily participate in the mechanism to prevent spread of viruses. To contain digital epidemics, we introduce a novel philosophy of artificial hygiene (AH) for digital devices. Hygiene is the art and science of prevention of propagation of disease. Using the AH philosophy, it is possible for an infected computer to automatically quarantine the infected email process from the network and ensure that a digital epidemic is contained.