Panda, Trend Micro seek anti-virus supremacy on workstations, file servers

Gone are the days when a simple anti-virus program installed on workstations on the corporate network was good enough to keep your business safe from virus and worm attacks.

Protecting businesses now requires a multilayer approach that includes an AV (anti-virus) solution installed on workstations and file servers, the addition of a firewall, and the protection of network gateways and firewalls. I tested Panda Software’s BusinesSecure 3.0 and Trend Micro’s Client/Server Suite for SMB 6.0, both of which tackle the client and file server protection pieces of the puzzle.

Both products use downloadable virus signature files from centralized signature database repositories to stay current, and each uses a single scan engine to find viruses. In these two products, the scanning engine quality is so good that just one engine is sufficient.

Because BusinesSecure and Client/Server are intended to be one component in a larger system, neither serves as an Internet gateway, and neither provides personal firewall functions. Both vendors, however, provide a plethora of additional features, in separate product-suite bundles.

Panda BusinesSecure 3.0

BusinesSecure has four components. AdminSecure provides administrative tools such as the admin console, communications agent, repository server, and event storage database. Client-Shield is an AV component that resides on Windows workstations. FileSecure is the AV component for Windows or Novell file servers and printers. And CommandlineSecure offers command-line AV protection.

A single-user version of BusinesSecure on a Windows 2000 laptop began impressively, finding three infected files that Norton had overlooked. Next, I installed BusinesSecure 3.0 on my Compaq ML530 departmental server and quickly disseminated ClientShield AV protection across the network using AdminSecure.

The user interfaces for both AdminSecure and ClientShield are Windows-centric, intuitive, and relatively straightforward. Panda produces some nifty real-time information using a proprietary, XML-based means of communication that conforms to SSL standards, whereas Trend Micro uses standard HTTP.

Unfortunately, I encountered a rather serious problem with BusinesSecure. The installation was incomplete, a fact I realized only after viewing the Events log and seeing that BusinesSecure wasn’t connecting to the Internet and therefore was not automatically downloading virus signature updates from Panda’s servers.

There was no documentation addressing required firewall configuration for automatic downloads, so I turned to Panda’s support team. They revealed the key: Port 8003 must be open to allow auto-downloads.

Even after I opened the port, the installation was never able to automatically download the updates. (I was able to download updates manually). To improve future versions of BusinessSecure, Panda needs to address the problem with appropriate documentation, add firewall intelligence so the application can detect which ports are available for communication purposes, and provide a pop-up alert window  if a download fails.

Additionally, I found that I could not uninstall ClientShield from a workstation using the Windows Uninstall tool in the workstation Control Panel, nor could I uninstall Client-Shield from the workstation through AdminSecure with admin privileges. According to a Warning Window, the only way to remove Client-Shield was by using the software CD — but the CD had no provision to uninstall.