Re: Anit-Virus help for all of us??????

["Jeff Shultz" <jeffshultz () wvi com>]

** Reply to message from Sean Donelan <sean () donelan com> on Mon, 24 Nov
2003 13:29:57 -0500 (EST)

> On Mon, 24 Nov 2003, Suresh Ramasubramanian wrote:
> > Most if not all computers that are sold (branded ones at least) do come
> > with an antivirus + "personal firewall" (aka snake oil firewall, as
> > vernon schryver keeps saying on news.admin.net-abuse.email and
> > elsewhere) package, with 6 months to a year of free updates.
>
> If most if not all computers that are sold include antivirus + personal
> firewalls, who is selling all the computers being infected with worms,
> virus, malware?

You know that the best AV program in the world isn't going to amount to
a hill of beans if the user doesn't 1. download updates, 2. run the
occasional scan [1], and 3. pay for more updates past the 1 year mark
(for those for which this is a requirement). 

Firewalls at least tend to be a bit more hands off... and I'd like to
hear more about the "snake oil" parts. Doesn't the 1/2wall that XP
ships with default to "disabled?" 

As for Malware... right now neither firewalls nor AV programs seem to
stop it's installation. Personally I wish that there was something that
we could install on customer machines that would absolutely and totally
block the installation of net.net stuff, to the point of deleting any
installation files that have been downloaded. 

[1] When cleaning a customer's Nachi infected machine, I discovered
that the installed copy of NAV was completely up to date - but a system
scan hadn't been run since July 2002.

-- 
Jeff Shultz
Loose nut behind the wheel.