Re: Poll: Anti-Spyware on servers

[Nick Lewis <lewisnic () ACM ORG>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Basgen, Brian" <bbasgen () PIMA EDU>
To: <SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU>
Sent: Monday, July 10, 2006 11:10 AM
Subject: [SECURITY] Poll: Anti-Spyware on servers


> We recently began deploying CounterSpy Anti-Spyware throughout our
> College, and a debate has arisen over whether or not it is needed on
> Windows servers. Some administrators feel that it is unecessary and
> potentially harmful to servers, so I'd like to get an idea on whether or
> not some higher education enterprises deploy anti-spyware on their
> servers. Thanks.

I agree that it should be unnecessary when your admins don't run IE/web
browser (unless absolutely necessary to download an update) or an e-mail
client. We don't run anti-spyware on servers, but do run AV. We had a server
get infected with spyware when an admin intentionally installed one of the
Gator utilities awhile ago and we had to remind our system admins not to
install unknown programs or surf the web while logged into servers.

Nick