The proper integration of encryption and anti-virus software is the only way to stop the two security tools continuing to work at crossed purposes, according to virus hunters at Kaspersky Labs.

Traditionally anti-virus and encryption, although opposite sides of the same coin, have not been particularly complementary. Michael Kalinichenko, the technical director at Kaspersky, said that properly integrating the two was a big logical challenge, and that it had to be approached sensibly. "If a company has its antivirus software outside the LAN, but the encryption software at the desktop, then a virus that arrives in an encrypted message can get into the LAN and will be able to move unchecked around the network," he said. On the other hand, if the encryption program runs outside the LAN, then "you would need a group key which kind of defeats the object of the exercise," according to Bob Middleton, marketing director at Kaspersky reseller Oxford Solutions. Another problem, according to Denis Zenkin, head of corporate communications at Kaspersky, is that people using both anti-virus and data encryption are often lulled into a false sense of security. He explained that because the anti virus software's priority is to be the first program to handle any incoming data, in may beat the decryption algorithm to the file.