[TriLUG] Open-Source Antivirus Solutions

[Ron Joffe]

On Tuesday 04 January 2005 14:55, Steve Litt wrote:

>
> Seems like the commrecial antivirus people are forever requiring you to
> upgrade or buy an entirely new package just to get the latest virus
> signatures.

I have a completely different gripe about commercial antivirus. 

We are utilizing TrendMicro ServerProtect on a number of SuSE Enterprise 
machines. 

TrendMicro provides you (as part of the install) with a kernel module. The 
module (rpm) is pre-built (i.e. no source) and specific to an exact kernel 
version (2.4.21-226 for example). 

Any time you want to update the kernel (for security, other application 
requirements, etc etc) you need to update the kernel module from TrendMicro. 
The catch is that that module is not available for all version of the Kernel 
that SuSE releases, and in particular the latest module from TrendMicro is 
months (as many as six) behind current SuSE releases.

So you end up with a machine with virus protection that is handicapped by 
having an old kernel (which in itself is a security hole) nice eh :(

I have been utilizing BitDefender as a free alternative on some workstations 
and servers. The free versions do not do real time scanning, but they are 
very usefull, and seem to be quite up to date from a nightly scan point of 
view.

Ron