Enterprise Antivirus Suggestions

Parja

Parja

[H]F Junkie
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Oct 4, 2002
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Our company uses Symantec Endpoint Protection, but we've been getting more and more annoyed with its resource usage. Plus, it hasn't proven to be all that effective at virus and malware detection. Therefore, we're looking at other options.

Any suggestions?

We've got about 100 PCs and 8 virtualized servers. Everything is running some form of Windows...PCs range from XP to 7 and servers are running Server 2003, though we'll likely be upgrading to 2008 in the not too distant future.
 
Vipre Antivirus, exteremely cost effective, low system resources, easy to use management console. I use to use ESET but swapped to this

Let me know if you are looking for a price =)
 
We use Kaspersky Business Security here, its fairly decent from a management point of view and very good on resources and ability to find Virus's.

We've only used two solutions TrendMicros and Kaspersky's Kaspersky's is much more suited to a business environment.
 
+1 for Kaspersky - easy to roll out, relatively small footprint, easy modular management.
 
We have been running Sophos for several years on our 1400+ nodes. Deployment didn't take much effort especially being a non-Microsoft shop. The support has been good when we needed it. We had a fake-av outbreak about a month ago in a couple labs and had updated detection defs with a couple hours of submission of the malware.
 
Well my little shop the systems are protected by Microsoft Security Essentials for Anti-Virus and the Windows Firewall. But this is 3 machines of course. One is where we store client information and records like recipts, accounts ect, as well as doubles as the cash register. One is the computer linked the wholesaler used to order parts and inventory, and the other PC sits in the office that we use to keep the books and do tax's at the end of the year, as well as of course talk to you fine people on Hard lol.
 
insaneshell said:
Well my little shop the systems are protected by Microsoft Security Essentials for Anti-Virus and the Windows Firewall. But this is 3 machines of course. One is where we store client information and records like recipts, accounts ect, as well as doubles as the cash register. One is the computer linked the wholesaler used to order parts and inventory, and the other PC sits in the office that we use to keep the books and do tax's at the end of the year, as well as of course talk to you fine people on Hard lol.
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Microsoft "Forefront" is the enterprise antivirus product from Microsoft.
Microsoft Security Essentials is only free for home users, and "the small end" of small businesses of up to 10 computers. Once you're at 11 computers or more...cannot use it. It does not support servers, will not install on servers.

We still use Eset NOD32 for our business/enterprise clients. Although Eset hasn't been dominating the malware cleaning arena lately...quite frankly, none of them have, I see the rogue/fake alerts slip past any/all AV brands out there.
 
YeOldeStonecat said:
Microsoft "Forefront" is the enterprise antivirus product from Microsoft.
Microsoft Security Essentials is only free for home users, and "the small end" of small businesses of up to 10 computers. Once you're at 11 computers or more...cannot use it. It does not support servers, will not install on servers.

We still use Eset NOD32 for our business/enterprise clients. Although Eset hasn't been dominating the malware cleaning arena lately...quite frankly, none of them have, I see the rogue/fake alerts slip past any/all AV brands out there.
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Well i wont need more than 3 unless i really pick up in bussiness, right now ive only got 12 machines on the bench, each one is doing the same thing running a full scan of malware bytes. Of course for clients that come in without an antivirus already installed or an out of date subscription based one I uninstall and install MSE for them as well.
 
insaneshell said:
Well i wont need more than 3 unless i really pick up in bussiness, right now ive only got 12 machines on the bench, each one is doing the same thing running a full scan of malware bytes. Of course for clients that come in without an antivirus already installed or an out of date subscription based one I uninstall and install MSE for them as well.
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For the OPs purpose....he asked for an "enterprise" product, over 100 workstations, and 8 servers...from 2003 to 2008 server. Those 2 criteria right there (over 10x PCs, and Servers) rule out MSE....he's in the territory of Forefront if he wants a Microsoft product.
 
YeOldeStonecat said:
For the OPs purpose....he asked for an "enterprise" product, over 100 workstations, and 8 servers...from 2003 to 2008 server. Those 2 criteria right there (over 10x PCs, and Servers) rule out MSE....he's in the territory of Forefront if he wants a Microsoft product.
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well Microsoft won't know also applies lol, there is a loophole, if the workstations are used by only 2-3 people it can use MSE as its then a personal PC from a standpoint, and is a massive loophole.
 
Parja said:
Our company uses Symantec Endpoint Protection, but we've been getting more and more annoyed with its resource usage. Plus, it hasn't proven to be all that effective at virus and malware detection. Therefore, we're looking at other options.
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Yeah, Endpoint blows ass. Unfortunately, they won the state bid or whatever and I'm stuck with it. Like installing a screen door on a submarine...
 
YeOldeStonecat said:
...snip...

It does not support servers, will not install on servers.

...snip...
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YeOlde, have you tried installing MSE on 03/08?

It works. Quite well too. Just make sure .NET is installed and updated. ;)

And no, I'm not kidding nor did the install need hacks of any kind. :eek: I'll post some screenies from home in a couple minutes. It's great for those times where you can't shell out $400+ for antivirus.
 
insaneshell said:
well Microsoft won't know also applies lol, there is a loophole, if the workstations are used by only 2-3 people it can use MSE as its then a personal PC from a standpoint, and is a massive loophole.
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No central management. You'd drive a sys admin crazy installing MSE on all of his machines. :rolleyes:
 
1. Hardware firewall
2. In the Enterprise business you dont get better than Norton. Dns protection, HIPS plus with outbreaks their Is out of the blocks first do analyze and get a fix for it. Penetration is a companies biggest risk. A good hardware firewall and good administration is more important than a av and resources its using
 
MS is trying to push FEP (Forefront endpoint protection) a tad harder. Its cheep now and is going to just about be free since it is being added to the core CAL. It works well but if you do not already use system center configuration manager, you have some major infrastructure to setup.
 
-Jess- said:
YeOlde, have you tried installing MSE on 03/08?

It works. Quite well too. Just make sure .NET is installed and updated. ;)

And no, I'm not kidding nor did the install need hacks of any kind. :eek: I'll post some screenies from home in a couple minutes. It's great for those times where you can't shell out $400+ for antivirus.
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Nope. It's against Microsoft licensing. Why risk my business and status with Microsoft? Would be like a cop going out and drinking and driving and telling everyone else to do it.

In the past it literally wouldn't install. BUT...I wouldn't do it for a production server anyways. Antivirus for a server is MUCH trickier, needs to be run very differently, and handle files in a special way. Not to mention a HUGE exclusion list. It's a lot more complicated on a server.
 
I'll throw in another vote for Kaspersky. We have been using the Kasperksy Enterprise Space Security suite for the last year and it's been reliable. Light on resources and the detection rates have been reliable. Also the administration kit is extremely easy to use.
 
YeOldeStonecat said:
Nope. It's against Microsoft licensing. Why risk my business and status with Microsoft? Would be like a cop going out and drinking and driving and telling everyone else to do it.

In the past it literally wouldn't install. BUT...I wouldn't do it for a production server anyways. Antivirus for a server is MUCH trickier, needs to be run very differently, and handle files in a special way. Not to mention a HUGE exclusion list. It's a lot more complicated on a server.
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Thanks for mentioning that YeOlde - I failed to mention a point of my own. :(

My intention wasn't to tell everyone "go install and run it" - I said it could be done. Of course, I should have specified that I used it on non-production servers and anyone doing it similar for a production network would be playing Russian Roulette anyway.

Anyway, thanks for clearing that up. :cool:

For Enterprise AV, any recommendations for Symantec's business products? Although Sophos is still a first choice recommendation ;) - Symantec's corporate products weren't too bad.
 
We used to resell Symantec Corp Edition to most of our clients....started using that for them way back with version 5. But up around version 8, and especially 9...started having a lot of issues with it. While yes back then its detection with malware started to go downhill (which they've greatly improved upon..yes)...the part I couldn't stand..was the amount of corrupted program updates when pushing out a new version from the management console. And when a client push install got corrupted....you had to go to the workstation and perform a manual removal of the product...very time consuming and tedious! That really hurt us when we quoted the job based on a flat fee for the project...estimating the time it would take. Plan on doing the job in 2 hours assuming the product would work like it should, and end up still there late at night 3 or 4 hours later because of delays in doing that manual cleaning.

So around version 8 of Symantec, we moved to Eset NOD32...that was back when it was at version 2.5. Great management console...not as intuitive at Symantecs..but very granular, and push installs and upgrades worked smoothly.

Also back then did a bit of AVG, Kaspersky, and Sophos. Liked Kaspersky the best of those 3. Have done McAfees product also...but hate the product. Trend Micros is OK too.
 
When you start to get into larger nodes Kaspersky's per user price steadily drops. I was rather pleased at the price for 64 nodes with 3 servers.
 
We switched from McAfee (Completly worthless) to Microsoft forfront. Really enjoying a lot of less work since it catches about 100% more of the viruses then McWorthless did.

+1 Forfront
 
Mackintire said:
When you start to get into larger nodes Kaspersky's per user price steadily drops. I was rather pleased at the price for 64 nodes with 3 servers.
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That is standard with most of the business/enterprise AV bundles..."price per node" drops as you purchase larger quantities.
 
YeOldeStonecat said:
So around version 8 of Symantec, we moved to Eset NOD32...that was back when it was at version 2.5. Great management console...not as intuitive at Symantecs..but very granular, and push installs and upgrades worked smoothly.
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Wondering how you find ESET for now, its been great for ages but recently I have had loads of trouble with the push installation, especially with windows 7. Also loads of the malware seems to get past it. Just wondering your views.
 
We are dropping sophos due to their shitty support. I can't depend on the product to protect our systems, we are moving to microsofts product this fall since it will be free with an upgrade we are doing.
 
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