A friend stopped by to ask if security suite x was any good or not. This led onto a conversation about a place she was working that wasn’t running any AV on windows machines. The rational behind this came from a 3rd party IT support guy who said “you don’t need AV on the Windows machines, the firewall will protect them”.
When I say firewall, I mean a good, old layer 3 packet filtering device. The things that cost $100 new and are, well, ADSL routers with added security aren’t able to protect a small office by themselves. Added security equals access control lists in a pretty GUI, so not really the poster boy for defense in depth.
Amazing that some IT “professionals” actually believe having a firewall will stop pc’s from getting malicious software. Thanks goodness the USB device fad never took off.
If you do not have anti-virus software on your home or small office computer, Microsoft provides a free copy you can download from here: http://www.microsoft.com/security_essentials/
It does the job, is simple to use and doesn’t cost a penny. You want something with all the whistles and bells, pick a security suite package from any of the big names.
We now return to our regular programme.