2.5 Virus Scanning

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Viruses on computers can result in the destruction of important data and cause days of lost productivity. According to industry reports, most companies have experienced damage caused by computer viruses. Virus protection can be purchased as a separate utility or it can come bundled with other LAN administration tools. Some products provide high levels of flexibility, allowing LAN administrators to tune how it detects viruses and what drives, directories, and files to scan. Scheduling capabilities enable the LAN administrator to set up scans to run automatically when the console is not being used. This prevents critical system resources from being tied up while a scan is in progress. An activity log keeps track of the results of all scans performed.

Some antivirus products are server based, which means that virus protection can be extended to every workstation. Depending on the product, virus definitions can be automatically synchronized throughout the enterprise so that all servers have the most up-to-date virus information. If a new virus is detected in one server, the virus profile is relayed to the other servers, safeguarding the entire LAN.

This information can also be passed to remote servers via Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) connections, extending virus protection enterprise-wide.

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