Re: Checking for AV software on students' machines

[Jeff Giacobbe <giacobbej () MAIL MONTCLAIR EDU>]

Nathan-

I unfortunately don't have an answer to your questions regarding
verification of AV software on client machines, but I was wondering if
you could provide some details on how you accomplished your first goal -
verifying for patches before a student machine is allowed on the network.

We are currently investigating ways to drop student machines into a
"quarantine" VLAN if they are not up to the latest Windows patches, but
so far have not found an effective way to do that check. Does your
solution require some kind of pre-installed client agent?

I didn't see anything in a previous thread, but if you've already
answered that question my apologies. Any insight, advice, horror stories
you could provide would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Jeff Giacobbe
Director of Systems, Security, and Networking
Montclair State University


Nathan Hall wrote:
> Now that we have found a way to check students' machines for missing
> patches before they are allowed on the network, we are looking to expand
> to checking for the presence of updated anti-virus software. This
> requires access to the students' machines, so we are looking at using a
> web page with a .NET component to perform the check. A few questions:
>
> 1) Is anyone else doing something like this currently?
> 2) How have you implemented this (web page w/ ActiveX/.Net, downloadable
> program...)?
> 3) What do you look for to determine if AV software is present (registry
> entries, services, running processes...)?
> 4) How successful has it been?
> 5) Pitfalls?
>
> Any other input would be appreciated too. Thanks in advance.
>
> Nathan Hall
> System Administrator
> SUNY Oneonta
> Oneonta, NY 13820
> (607) 436-2708
>
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