The present invention relates to computer viruses and more particularly to a
method and system for caching anti-virus file certificates. Each anti-virus certificate
associated with a file comprises a file signature. The file signature is generated
by a virus-free certificate authority, which avoids the system, which receives
the file to check this file for all existing viruses. The virus-free certificate
authority validates the file against all known viruses, using one or several anti-virus
checkers. In case of new viruses, only the virus-free certificate authority is
changed and the only process performed by the system receiving the file is to verify
the file against the file signature included in the virus-free certificate, and
to filter the file according predetermined rules. The present invention drastically
simplifies the computing resources for detecting viruses on network devices such
as IP Routers and Firewalls.
