MS AntiSpyware

[agent006]

Anybody use this extensively in a corporate environment? It's just been rebranded as Windows Defender, and whilst it's still a beta, i'm pondering putting it on our build images.
Just wondering if anyone's got any input, having used it in a similar environment?

[_dobbo_]

Seems ok, it threw up a few false positives when I installed it but aside from that it's never done a thing. That said our machines are all firewalled up to the nines anyway, and all outbound web access goes through a virus scanning proxy, so the risk internally is pretty low.

[lockstock2sb]

I use it on my citrix internet servers and it hasnt detected anything yet so i have to put that down to the servers being clean..

Its a beta that expires in 200 days or so, after that i suspect it will become a paid product and cease to function so i'd think twice about integrating it into a image if you plan on not changing it for a while

[neil_cardiff]

IIRC correctly MS were not really considering to release this verison for Corp environments, they were planning on rolling out a different version.

I'd look at the competitors that you have to pay for as to be brutally honest I can't quite see MS being able to provide the level of security for this sort of product.

Its the same with their dip in the water of AV products - while I commend them for trying to force to big players to rethink their monopoly on the corp markets, I wouldn't trust a MS Antivirus product as far as I can throw it until its well and truely bedded in...i.e at least a service pack in.

It's too much of a security risk to have a product that isn't proven categoricly BY SOMEONE ELSE!!!

[FourWheelDrift]

I've also used this Spy Sweeper - www.webroot.com/

Very similar to Microsoft's tool but has a small/medium business version.

[lockstock2sb]

neil_cardiff said:

It's too much of a security risk to have a product that isn't proven categoricly BY SOMEONE ELSE!!!

I'd agree there, and would recommend Ad-aware, and Search and Destroy to all be run alongside each other to catch any nasty spyware Seems to be doing the job nicely.

[_dobbo_]

I think we need to be careful to seperate corporate from home user here.

Would anyone use Spybot/Adaware in a corp. environment? I'm not sure the management tools allow for it to be rolled out to any more than a handful of desktops.

[agent006]

_dobbo_ said:

Would anyone use Spybot/Adaware in a corp. environment? I'm not sure the management tools allow for it to be rolled out to any more than a handful of desktops.

Exactly. Windows Defender has updates available via WSUS, which is what alerted my gadget sensors. We don't have a problem with spyware as such, but i'd like to get a bit ahead of the game.

[jamieboy]

neil_cardiff said:

I'd look at the competitors...I wouldn't trust a MS Antivirus product as far as I can throw it until its well and truely bedded in...It's too much of a security risk to have a product that isn't proven categoricly BY SOMEONE ELSE!!!

But weren't these both stand-alone products in their own right, before Microsoft bought the companies?

Not sure if that gives them more credibility or less, but although they're Microsoft's first releases of the product, they're not the first releases of the products ever.

Various places I've been have used AV products from McAfee, Sophos, and Symantec, and I'd struggle to say any of them was better or worse than any of the others.

I've not been aware of any enterprise anti-spyware, though - be interested to hear what you're all using.

[neil_cardiff]

jamieboy said:

neil_cardiff said: I'd look at the competitors...I wouldn't trust a MS Antivirus product as far as I can throw it until its well and truely bedded in...It's too much of a security risk to have a product that isn't proven categoricly BY SOMEONE ELSE!!! But weren't these both stand-alone products in their own right, before Microsoft bought the companies? Not sure if that gives them more credibility or less, but although they're Microsoft's first releases of the product, they're not the first releases of the products ever. Various places I've been have used AV products from McAfee, Sophos, and Symantec, and I'd struggle to say any of them was better or worse than any of the others. I've not been aware of any enterprise anti-spyware, though - be interested to hear what you're all using.

There are anti-spyware management tools out there but they obviously cost money. The idea with MS Defender will be that it should be free. Having said that I haven't read any white papers on it yet.

However, thinking back to the whole Windows Firewall escapade, which was as useless as a chocolate teapot in a corp environment - so much so that MS recommended corp users to disable it within the LAN - I'd be interested to see what (not if) holes appear within the software.

Certainly it'd be easier to do without it by ensuring you control your users browsing habits, but thats getting bloody hard without the use of harware av scanning gateways (for example NAI E500 device) which obivously lock everything down...

[aldi]

Have used it only on an ad-hoc basis for erm 'certain users' you know the ones. Not as a general pre-emptive build time thing. No problems except it expiring from time to time and needing to be reinstaled.

I've noticed some of the newer AV programs are claiming spyware protection as well as AV, maybe that will be the way to go?