Antivirus Solutions

---

Whether you have a stand-alone computer system, home network, or are fortunate enough to have the responsibility of protecting an enterprise network, it is critical that you properly implement and maintain a good solid antivirus solution. Insidious hackers continue to develop new tools and techniques with the intentions of demolishing your home or corporate information. In order to give your important enterprise platforms and data a fighting chance, you must take the time to educate yourself with antiviral products that provide enterprise level support and centralized management.

It is very common today to find home computer systems as well as enterprise business systems that do have quality antiviral products installed from major manufactures such as Symantec or McAFee. However, it also very common to find many of these installations improperly configured and mismanaged. Typically, this results in systems that appear to protected, when in reality, they are sitting ducks for viruses. There are several reasons for this. It is very common to find systems that do not have their virus definition files up-to-date. This results in a lack of protection against new viruses and variations of older viruses.

It is crucial to the welfare of your systems and data that you keep your virus definitions files up-to-date. Most quality antivirus packages offer the ability to have your system retrieve virus definitions automatically from the manufacturer’s Web site on a scheduled basis. It is highly recommended that you schedule auto updates to occur as frequently as possible. Symantec enterprise antivirus software as well as their personal antivirus editions call this LiveUpdate.

By default, most of the major antivirus packages enable file system real-time protection. This option allows the antivirus package to continually scan files that are accessed, created, or modified at all times. Real-time protection generally runs as a service and can at times hamper your systems performance. However, it is well worth the trade off for the protection it offers. It is common to find file system, real-time protection disabled on systems. This can result in systems being wide open to virus attacks. You might not even know you have a virus until your system performs a system virus scan. This brings up another point: if you do not schedule full system scans to occur on a frequent basis, you might not even know you have a virus until it’s too late.

The point here is that just having antivirus software installed does not mean that you are properly protected. Education, training, and proper daily management of antivirus products, particularly in a networked environment with enterprise support, are a must.

Next, we will focus on antivirus practices that should be implemented in order to better increase the chances of survival of your home or enterprise systems or networks should they (and they will) come under virus attack.

Antivirus Practices

As stated earlier, a combination of education, training, and management policies with antivirus products and practices is essential to the survival and welfare of computer systems and networks.

The following basic guidelines should be followed when using and managing antivirus software at home or in a business enterprise:

• Install, update, and maintain reputable quality antivirus software to servers and workstations. This includes setting up daily antivirus definition updates, enabling real-time protection, setting up schedules scans of all system drives, and enabling e-mail and attachment scanning.

• All users of computer systems (at home or in the workplace) should be educated/alerted when particular virus attacks occur or are expected to occur. Symantec Corporation does a great job updating their Web site with virus threats that are anticipated. This information can prove invaluable to administrators who need to apply particular patches or make updates in preparation for new or anticipated variations of viruses.

• Teach all users at home or in the workplace that opening e-mail attachments as well as Instant Messaging attachments might be detrimental to your system’s life span.

• In a business environment, ensure that your corporate antivirus business policy is up-to-date and accurate. Ensure that new and existing employees sign an addendum that states they are familiar with the company’s policy regarding computer usage as well as virus policy and procedures.

---