Anti-Spyware Program Advice

[Jose]

Hi All,
   Been a while since I hit this list up.  I graduated in 2001, so there are probably no original members left in the group.  Is Nick still around?  I imagine he is off somewhere where creating a Linux distro for an elite class of supercomputers or maybe just getting mucho satisfaction as a domain admin and getting to tell users "no" all the time.

I know this is not Linux related but, to get to the point, can any of you recommend an anti-spyware program that works well in a corporate environment?  I just got roped into this project, so before I grab a few folks and start using trial-ware to try and get our test PCs infected with everything under the sun, or start having to listen to the sales guys BS for days on end, I figured I would shout out to some of my tech-savvy groups to see if there were any suggestions. Anything that you guys use or have used in the past would be helpful.   Any and all suggestions are welcomed, but here is a bit about our environment, in case any of you need or would like some more information:

1.) Approximately 750 workstations, most of which running XP Pro - All have full admin rights (I know, I just got another headache when I typed that last part out)

2.) We run Symantec's Endpoint Protection for our anti-virus needs

3.) Approximately 300 workstations are located in our remote offices, and are not connected to our domain 100% of the time.  They do connect, fairly regularly, via VPN connection.

Price is a consideration, but I am not at that point yet.  Just trying to weed out the garbage programs first and hopefully latch on to some good products.

Thanks for any suggestions, I appreciate it.

-Jose

[Traicovn]

I tried to leave, really I did!

I'm sure it's not what you want to hear, but I'm all for reimaging
desktops now. I've had to start doing it at University Relations (MUCH
smaller installation). I had a friend who was sysadmin for a high
school with a few hundred computers and he swore by Altiris for
managing and imaging windows stations. Maybe something like that
combined with locally installed copies of something like malware bytes
for quick fixes?

We're using clonezilla here at the office for imaging. Perhaps if you
could set up a box in each office that the computers in that office
can netboot from you could use that for reimaging, and then just
periodically refresh the images on those boxes as needed? I don't know
how diverse the installation base is that you have on extra software
past the operating system though.

--nick

[Lucas Carr]

What our helpdesk generally does is use these 2 (usually in this order).

1 Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware
   http://malwarebytes.org/

2 SUPERAntiSpyware
   http://www.superantispyware.com/

One recommendation I would make is to make sure all features of SEP are deployed to the clients in your environment & that you are on the latest version (11.0.6100.645)

BUT...  Nick is right.  Re-imaging is the best solution.  If you can get Altiris, it's images are hardware agnostic.  Can't speak for anything else.  Hope this helps.

 lucas

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[Jose]

Hi Nick!  Great to hear from you.  I didn't know you were still in the Starkvegas area.  Glad to hear that, they could definitely use a mind such as yours.

Reimaging is essentially what we are doing now.  However, we can't do that to the remote offices.  There are 144 remote offices, and to put additional hardware out to each one just isn't an option for us.  Also, some of our in-house programs require a database creation that we can't integrate into a build image.  That has to be done by hand.  The boss said this morning that we need a software solution that works with our existing setup, so off to the friends and groups I went, to get a feel for what people like out there.  I have gotten several recommendations for Webroot Web Security.  I will probably be checking that one out soon.

By the way, what Linux distro are you running these days?  I was playing around with LinuxMint the other day, after reading about how popular it has become.  Seems their are some very Win 7-ish designs in it to me, but it is nicely polished.

Again, good to hear from you.  I hope everything is going well.  Thanks for keeping BullyLug alive!

-Jose

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From: Traicovn <google...@traicovn.com>
To: BullyLUG <bull...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Wed, December 1, 2010 1:13:58 PM
Subject: [BullyLUG] Re: Anti-Spyware Program Advice

[Jose]

Thanks, Lucas.  We have been looking at Super Anti-Spyware.  Seems like it is outperforming other solutions out there.  We use Malwarebytes now, but getting the sales guys to call us back has been ridiculous.  7 attempts, and only one response.  Never got another response after the first one.  So, we abandoned trying to buy Malwarebytes.  Those guys sure aren't trying to sell their product.  We like Super Anti-Spyware, and may stick with it.

Thanks again,
Jose

---

From: Lucas Carr <luca...@gmail.com>
To: bull...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Wed, December 1, 2010 1:19:58 PM
Subject: Re: [BullyLUG] Re: Anti-Spyware Program Advice