markr1963

This sudden burst of virus activity has got me wondering. I use McAfee's VirusScan Online on my home PC and lappy. Is this effective enough protection in the face of this recent avalanche of viruses (virii??)? Or would I be better off with VirusScan Home?

I also have ZoneAlarm Pro (I know this is dissed by some but what alternatives are there for the home pc?) so I am sufficiently protected?

Mark

JackClark

You're doing well.

My machine upstairs is running VirusScan Online and it updated itself on Monday in plenty of time for the rush. You should also ensure that you're updating your operating system, again my machine upstairs had all the Microsoft Critical Updates installed before the panic. Not sure about ZoneAlarm, I've not used it for a while but used to be quite happy with it.

markr1963

Cheers

JackClark

Oh and it's 'Viruses'

Chris L

Mark - you are doing more than most.

I run McAfee VirusScan Online - always found it to be very effective. Zone Alarm is fine - not my first choice, but that is personal preference.

Use the Autoupdate feature in Windows and you should be OK. For my home PC this is sufficient. I do have some other bits running, but that is more through professional interest (IT Security is part of my job) than a desparate need to run these programs.

Chris

markr1963

Cheers guys

Glad my home setup seems ok. Got Norton and McAfee running at work plus Panda's offering as part of Winproxy (and their firewall) plus ICF plus ZoneAlarm Pro.

Got a server and 20 odd PCS to look after. The server was acting decidely odd last night so early start for me this morning Gateway PCs had already been patched but I did the rest.

Incidentally, so far as work is concerned is there a better alternative to Zonealarm? We have ISDN dialups ATM.


Mark

JR55

Depends on how much money you have to spend!

Chris L

Mark depends what you want. If your work setup has a direct link to the Internet and no firewall in place, then you do need to look at this.

20 PCs isn't that big - something from the Sonicwall range would be ideal. They are cheap and effective hardware firewalls. You should be up and running in under an hour. If you want to play around, there are plent of Linux based firewalls that could be used - normally an older PC will be fine to load Linux onto.

Chris

Chris L

For individual machines ZoneAlarm will be OK - I use Sygate as a preference as it is a little less lardy than ZoneAlarm and in my experience doesn't hog the resources of your PC as much - but it is really personal choice.

Chris

markr1963

JR55
Not much of a budget unfortunately

Chris
Our internet access is ISDN. One PC as proxy server running Winproxy + ICF + ZoneAlarm. Another handles the email using MDaemon + ZoneAlarm. I'll have a look at Sygate.

I'll have a look at Sonicwall too.

Thanks

Mark