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Anti Virus

Computer viruses have always been an issue for home and business users alike, but we've come to accept them as an inevitable side effect of computing in general. The real cost estimates for businesses vary depending on what publication you may be reading, but worryingly the lowest estimates are still as high as £6 billion each year!

Over time myths surrounding viruses have been adopted by the 'virus community', experts and used time and time again by proprietary vendors during their marketing compaigns. The reality is however, that viruses within the workplace can be completely eradicated and prevented easily and efficiently by embracing open source solutions.

The untold truths

  • Although viruses have long been described as computer problems, they are primarily Microsoft problems.
  • Similarly, you may have also been told that viruses are generally an email problem whereas they are in fact a Microsoft Outlook problem.
  • Many have stated that when Linux's market share reaches a similar figure to Windows', viruses will be just as common on this platform. Fortunately, the architecture on which Linux is built upon makes virus epidemics effectively impossible.
  • You may have even been told to invest in expensive AntiVirus solutions, expecting these to solve your virus problems. Unfortunately they won't and even machines operating with the most expensive solutions are still prone to virus attacks.
  • Despite what many people say, viruses are not inevitable and have come about via flawed software design and vulnerable architectures.

What can you do?

You may have guessed that the most obvious solution to adopt when battling your anti virus problems is to replace your Microsoft software. This software has always been riddled with security flaws and is the underlying problem when it comes to viruses. Through fundamental flaws in the design and implementation of the software itself, these security issues will always be present, so upgrading to the latest version is not solving the problem!

The cuprits

Information Information Services (IIS)

Viruses absolutely love Internet Information Services (IIS), so do not use it! The Apache webserver is quicker, more reliable, more scalable and is above all completely free! You will benefit from unrivalled uptimes of years and not weeks without the need to constantly maintain it via weekly security updates.

Microsoft Outlook

As mentioned above, Microsoft Outlook is prone to a vast number of email viruses that exploit particular areas of the software. A better alternative would be Mozilla Messenger which contains all the functionality of Outlook without the security holes. You can customise how the software looks and can benefit from standard features such as shared calendars. As the software is available on a number of different platforms, those businesses running a mixture of operating systems such as Linux, Windows or Solaris can benefit.

Windows File and Print Sharing

Windows File and Print Servers are a breeding ground for virul exploits! Using Samba is a much better alternative that yields a number of key benefits. Firstly its much faster than its Windows rival, recently being benchmarked at over two and a half times faster than Windows 2003 Server. Secondly, its more scalable - four times that of Windows 2003 Server in fact. Finally its more reliable and impervious to viruses. Oh and of course it's free, which will save your company a fortune in licence fees.

What next?

The Open Source Software Company can provide your company with security consultancy services. We can adopt a number of solutions to help your anti virus systems become more reliable and robust and even can tailor our solutions to meet the needs of any corporate policies you may have.