Central Anti-Virus For Small Business?

rduke15 writes "I'm trying to find a centrally managed anti-virus solution for a small business network, which has around 20 Windows XP machines with a Linux server. It is too big to manage each client manually. However, there is no no full-time IT person on site, and no Windows Active Directory server — just Linux with Samba. And the current solution with Symantec Endpoint Protection seems too expensive, and too complex for such a simple need. On the Linux server side, email is handled by amavisd and ClamAV. But the WinXP clients still need a real-time anti-virus for the USB disks they may bring to work, or stuff they download from their personal webmail or other sites. I'm wondering what others may be using in similar situations, and how satisfied they are with it."

Comments

Start with sensible policies.

[Opportunist]

Antivirus suits are the last line of defense. Not the first!

The first is the user and sensible usage policies. When people can download and execute arbitrary software and plug in USB sticks at random, you have bigger problems than the choice of your AV.

Re:Start with sensible policies.

[GF678]

The first is the user and sensible usage policies. When people can download and execute arbitrary software and plug in USB sticks at random, you have bigger problems than the choice of your AV.

So what would you recommend?

I don't disagree with you; smart and sensible policies are the best defense. But then again, I service schools, and schools have kids and parents (and teachers) who aren't going to follow the rules, so AV is still necessary. I can't lock down the USB ports (physically or otherwise); I'd have a rebellion on my hands.

BTW - I'm an engineer by trade, just acting as an IT jockey in the meantime, so I don't know all the best tricks of the trade yet. But it'd be helpful to know. :)

One proposal

[freedom_india]

1) You need an anti-virus solution in the Linux box. Assuming that is your only gateway to the external internet, putting up a anti-virus enabled firewall and stopping unwanted protocols is enough to filter out most stuff.
2) Disable USB and DVD drives on every PC. Physically. Period.
Its cheap and fast.

Never McAfee

[dltaylor]

McAfee is horrendously insidious. Should you ever want to use a different product, it is damn near impossible to remove. After the IT guy at a job spent 7 hours trying to get rid of it (he did, mostly) when they switched to Kaspersky, I spent another three with regedit and a few Cygwin tools hunting down the rest. I think I got it all, since Outlook has finally quit trying to use it.

Avoid it like the plague.

Re:We use Nod32

[Bert64]

heuristics won't help either, malware authors will have pirate copies of all the latest av products and will tweak their malware until the heuristics no longer detect it before they start deploying it.