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F-Secure's anti-virus tools are all based on the same core detection technology, which uses scanning engines from F-Prot and AVP together with its own Orion engine. These implement a combination of signature recognition and heuristic techniques to detect new as well as already identified virus strains. On-demand and realtime scanning facilities are provided, and compressed files can be scanned, along with network file shares. There's no automatic reporting of new infections, but offline reports are possible and a distributed research team operates 24 hours a day to generate at least daily updates, with local access and support in the UK. The company also offers a bulletin service (F-Secure Radar) to advise customers of new threats as they're discovered.
There are lots of F-Secure products to choose from and it can take a while to work out what's required. As far as the desktop is concerned, however, F-Secure Anti-Virus for Workstations is the main solution, and supports both Windows (95 up) and Linux workstations. Alternatively, F-Secure Anti-Virus Client Security adds a personal firewall, intrusion detection and application control facilities on top of anti-virus functionality. A client for Pocket PC handhelds is another option, as is a client for the Nokia 9200 Communicator.
F-Secure Anti-Virus for File Servers protects Windows (NT, 2000, 2003) and x86 Linux server platforms, with support for Red Hat, Suse and Debian Linux distributions. There's no Netware product in the F-Secure line-up or Lotus Notes/Domino protection, but there is a Microsoft Exchange module (Exchange Server 2000 only at present), and a module to work with SMTP-based mail hosts. There's also an F-Secure Anti-Virus product to integrate with Mimesweeper/Mailsweeper content filtering tools and another for use with Checkpoint and Cisco Pix firewalls. We have reviewed the Anti-Virus Total Suite which incorporates most of the individual products.
Centralised deployment and management of all F-Secure products (apart from Linux workstations and servers) is possible using the F-Secure Policy Manager which comprises three components. The first, the Policy Manager server, can be run on either a Windows or Linux (Red Hat or Suse) server host, with a separate console application, again available for either Windows or Linux deployment. The console can be installed on the management server or run remotely. A management agent for each client, server or gateway to be managed is included and doesn't normally need to be installed separately.
F-Secure is unusual in supporting both Linux and Windows-based management platforms. One advantage of Linux is a lower cost of ownership where the operating system is already deployed, and functionality is much the same in either case, except that the Linux server can't be used to remotely install new or updated software on clients, servers and gateways. Both, though, can be used to configure multiple security policies covering not just anti-virus protection but also firewall, VPN and other security tools from F-Secure.
The comprehensive policies can be distributed across multiple Policy Manager servers on a large network, with alerting options to indicate when policies are in danger and when possible security breaches have been thwarted. Policy Manager can also be used to monitor updates and find unprotected nodes on the network. A reporting option enables you to produce custom reports in HTML or Excel formats.
The F-Secure software was easy to install and the main components easy enough to get to grips with, however the huge amount of functionality in Policy Manager makes remote management complicated. That, though, was our only real issue. The company released timely updates to new threats during our tests and we had no problems with either the performance of the scanners or the level of protection afforded. The extra security beyond anti-virus protection is another bonus, but this does add to the price.
Contact: F-Secure 01223 478 800
www.f-secure.com
Price details:
Price £35.25 (£30 ex VAT) per node (500 + nodes)
Back to corporate anti-virus tools group test
See also:
The business version of Symantec's well known anti-virus tool. 11 May 2004
All Antivirus & Firewalls
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