Agony for anti-virus vendor Sophos

UK anti-virus firm Sophos has signed a deal with The Sun's agony aunt column 'Dear Deidre' to protect its virtual mailbag from viruses.

The column boasts 11 million readers - based on the paper's circulation - and claims a robust anti-virus solution is critical in ensuring readers queries reach the agony aunt and can be answered in a timely fashion.

According to the column's eponymous heroine Deidre Sanders the mailbox was taken out of commission for four days by the Sircam virus and she expressed concerns about what queries she may have been unable to answer during that time, branding the downtime "disastrous".

Readers email Deidre with around 1,000 questions, concerns and dilemmas every week and the public availability of the email address could easily expose it to the threat of malware.

Graham Cluley, chief technology consultant at Sophos, hopes the deal may be a sign of things to come, and he already has his eyes on the mailboxes of other sections in The Sun.

Cluley told silicon.com: "Following Dear Deidre's choice of Sophos Anti-Virus we hope to capitalise on this success and target Mystic Meg's astrology column and the Page 7 Superhunks. Sophos's wide range of operating system coverage should offer full coverage of George & Lynne and we are considering providing a Norse version for Hagar the Horrible."

Warming to this theme, Cluley added: "The next edition of Sophos Anti-Virus comes complete with a pullout poster of Atomic Kitten and Orlando 'elf for the ladies' Bloom.

We can only hope he was joking.