Possibly moving from LEA, need a new anti virus solution.

[jonnykewell1]

Hello all,

 

we are looking at the possibility of moving from our LEA and I have been told to look for another anti virus program. We currently use Sophos but tbh we have never been much of a fan. As well as having a good rating as regards to viruses we need one that blocks removable storage and has a good enterprise console for managing and deploying software and keeping an eye on which machines are up to date etc... I had a play with ESET Nod32 a couple of years ago but I could'nt get the software deployment quite right. Any advice would be much appreciated.

 

Regards,

 

Jonny.

[sonofsanta]

If you want software deployment etc. as well then Microsoft System Centre Configuration Manager is well worth looking at, particularly if you're using EES licensing. Lets you deploy all sorts of software, does all your windows updates, and lets you use System Centre Endpoint Protection which is included in your EES (and works very well).

 

Not sure on blocking removable storage, but you can do that in GPO anyway I think.

[jonnykewell1]

I mean the deployment of the client from the enterprise console of the anti virus, not so much deployment of other software. cheers.

[sonofsanta]

I mean the deployment of the client from the enterprise console of the anti virus, not so much deployment of other software. cheers.

 

Ah right. Well SCCM does do that bit, for what it's worth, and it's easy setting policies for different machines etc. If you already have EES then I'd at least give it a look, although it's not necessarily an easy system to set up (though it's brilliant once it is); if you get your MS licences differently then I'm not sure it'd be cost effective, and it'd certainly be overkill if all you need is AV.

[jonnykewell1]

I will look into this as I have seen it mentioned but never looked at it.

[Edu-IT]

We use VIPRE and it's working well for us.

[bwestlake]

we use avg and its been reliable and a lot better than Sophos is!

[localzuk]

Another fan of SCEP here. Included for 'free' with EES licensing. Well worth it.

[detjo]

Been using Kaspersky Security Center here for the last 2 years and it does all you need from the admin console. Cost worked out to about £12 per computer for a 3 year license

[jonnykewell1]

do you know what the pricing is for Vipre? we have probably over a 1000 machines and are a school.

[deano]

SCEP for me as well! Recently deployed it to remove our existing sophos and found 43 machines with spyware.

 

All had Sophos, up to date and no alerts of anything?? Very concerning

[Millgate]

PM'd

 

We sell Vipre as a few people on here will tell you

 

Luke

[bodminman]

We use Vipre too. Really easy to install, learn and manage. The pricing was pretty good too!

[chrisgoodrich]

SCEP integrated into SCCM works a treat.

[glennda]

do you know what the pricing is for Vipre? we have probably over a 1000 machines and are a school.

 

I bought Avast 4.5k for 3 years for 1000 machines!

[jonnykewell1]

that avast is a good price. As for sophos not finding all that spyware is pretty worrying. we have the disadvantage of having over 1200 machines so either way it will knock the costs up a fair bit. but... i'm not the one paying lol.

[Oaktech]

The latest Eset endpoint contains lots of new tools for deployment... We couldn't push NOD from the console, endpoint goes with very little grief. Also, I've rarely dealt with anyone as competent and friendly as Eset customer support.

[rob101]

We are also looking into this as our current license with Kaspersky runs out in March, at the moment I have a shortlist of

 

Microsoft End Point (were having system center installed shortly) But dont have any experience of this product, but seems popular as seen in this thread.

 

kaspersky been good bit of Kit although the console is complex, no virus problems for the 3 years we been using it, so proven ability.

 

Nod

[glennda]

that avast is a good price. As for sophos not finding all that spyware is pretty worrying. we have the disadvantage of having over 1200 machines so either way it will knock the costs up a fair bit. but... i'm not the one paying lol.

 

It was, and having used it at home for years without fault I couldn't see a reason not to, The management console is a lot easier to control than others.

[caffrey]

Just how hard is SCCM to setup ? We use Sophos at the mo and i'd like to get away from it - I think the agreement runs out in 12 days tho...

[sonofsanta]

Just how hard is SCCM to setup ? We use Sophos at the mo and i'd like to get away from it - I think the agreement runs out in 12 days tho...

 

It will be more effort to set SCCM up than it will a straightforward AV solution; if you follow the guides at windows-noob.com and on @TheScarfedOne's blogs on here, you could have it up and running in a few days and doing your AV. You wouldn't necessarily understand anything you'd just done, but you could pick that up as you went along

 

If all you wanted to do was have it run your AV you could set it up to look after itself with updates etc., and just have it email you when viruses are found - you don't actually need to look at the console unless you want to. You would need to run Windows Updates through SCCM as well, though, in order to run the AV updates through it - the SCEP definitions are sent out through the same framework as normal updates. If you already run WSUS it's not massively different, though it takes some adjusting to. Again, though - plenty of guides about, and plenty of us around here doing things this way if you need to ask.

[caffrey]

Cheers for that may just give it a go