anti-virus Archives - Foster Institute

Protect Yourself: Do Not Connect a New Computer to the Internet

Mike Foster — Wed, 21 Jun 2017 19:26:03 +0000

Some people turn on a brand new computer, connect to the Internet, and download anti-virus to the their new computer. When you think about it…It would be better to install anti-virus on the new computer, and have more protection, before connecting it to the Internet.

This involves going to a computer you trust that is well protected, and downloading the installation files for the anti-virus program that you will install on your new computer.

Then you can copy the anti-virus installation files to the new machine, install anti-virus, and then connect to the Internet so your new computer can get patches, etc.

Of course, if the old computer that you use to download the files is infected, there is a good chance that the new computer will catch that virus too – so be sure you trust the old computer.

Please forward this to everyone you know who might otherwise be tempted to connect a new computer to the internet before installing anti-virus first.

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Don’t install anti-virus on your computers?

Mike Foster — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 04:00:01 +0000

If you use a cloud service to provide anti-virus to your computers, you don’t need to install anti-virus anymore.

Although, you may need to install a small client on your machines that can communicate with the anti-virus service.

You may hear this referred to as SAAS Software as a service anti-virus. So far, at least three vendors are offering this service to business (not personal) customers including Symantec’s hosted End Point Protection, McAfee SaaS Endpoint Protection, and Web Sense’s Triton Technology.

One of the benefits of this technology is that your computers no longer need to have the latest “signature updates” installed. The latest signatures are, in theory, available in the cloud the instant your anti-virus vendor creates the signature.

Someday your anti-virus may be provided from the cloud too!

Please post your comments on this blog.

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Old-school anti-virus is no longer the best protection

Mike Foster — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 04:00:11 +0000

Anti-virus sounds like a great feature, right? But anti-virus can be ineffective in fighting newer threats.

For years, anti-virus tools attempted to detect viruses by looking for known “signatures.” Think of the “signatures” as a thumbprint of a virus. The anti-virus tools look for those thumbprints and the anti-virus vendors constantly update “signature” files in an effort to keep up with the thumbprints of all new viruses.

These days, some viruses can “morph” at regular intervals—keeping their same dangerous functionality and avoiding the signature matching. An analogy would be someone being able to change their thumbprint one or more times each day.

Over the years anti-virus has evolved to include new ways to stop viruses. One way is to watch for dangerous behavior. The problem here is for the anti-virus tool to be able to discern if the dangerous behavior is being performed by a legitimate process or a virus.

Anti-virus vendors are constantly playing the “cat and mouse” game of keeping up with new virus strategies. This is one more reason to always stay current with the latest anti-virus offerings available.

Please post your comments on this blog.

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