Urgent Questions..

First off.. I'm not new here in Wilders.. I just don't post much.. Been reading here since I joined last March 2007.. I'm mostly posting on CastleCops, sadly it shut down.. I think a lot of guys here are experienced enough or Intelligent enough to answers my urgent important questions..

I'm currently task or working as a Maintenance officer for all Computers in a Municipality ( don't Really know my JOB title for it).. My Job consist of Maintaining, Repairing some PC's and Sometimes Counseling some PC users on how to Handle or Maintain their PC's in Mint condition in this Municipality..

Maintaining some:

300+ PC's from Elementary and High School..
100+ PC's from Government and Private institutions..

Its a hard work travelling 10 to 20 Km to each schools i round up each week.. Mostly repairing some PC's.. But the most common problem I encounter are Viruses, Worms, Trojan's, etc. Infecting this PC's.. Most PC's I encounter had NO Anti-Virus programs running on their System.. Being in a Developing or 3rd World Country.. Some Institutions cant afford Anti-virus programs sold on the Internet.. Im currently Running a Licensed Norton IS 2009 on my laptop coupled with Avira Antivir Personal to clean this Systems.. My way of cleaning this systems is removing the Hard Drive on the Infected System and Plugging it to my Portable USB Hard Drive Closure and Scanning it with both Norton and Avira.. It very much clean up most of the systems.. One school has all of its PC's infected by a malware which everytime you press the "Enter Key" will launched the Browser and redirected to ~Link removed. Not needed.~ which is devastating when most of the users are children age 9 to 13 yrs old..

Soo Here are my Questions:

1.) Is it Legal to use Free Antivirus programs like Avira Antivir Personal, Avast Home, or any other free antivirus programs to be used in a institutions like Elementary Schools, etc??

2.) If their is a Free Antivirus that can be used on this Institutions, May I ask what this programs are??

3.) Are Using Both Norton Internet Security 2009 and Avira Antivir Personal enough to remove most malware?

4.) Does my Job Suck

Notes:

Most of this PC's have no Internet Connection..
Most people in this municipality are not Familiar with Internet.. (Some People don't know what Google or Yahoo is)

 

For fast cure I recommend to use Dr. Web CureIt! ® Utility
It is free and legal. But it demands each time anew to download itself before a new scanning http://www.freedrweb.com/cureit/?lng=en

 

It wouldn't help much bcoz after a few days those systems are infected again.. I want a Resident protection for these systems..

 

I don't believe it is legal unless otherwise specified, but avast does offer discounts for government and educational purposes

I only know of Comodo AV being free for everyone including businesses, as its CEO likes the free advertising . It is not the greatest, but it is constantly improving and backed by a giant community and many developers. The CEO wants it to be as good as Norton and the other big names some day, so you can be sure they won't slack on improvements.

Yes, Avira has the second best detection rates (sorry guys but a-squared is king now), and norton is usuallly around the top aswell.

If you find fixing computers fun than your job does not suck. I like fixing computers so i would love your job.

This could be a problem because most av's need the internet to update, but it could also be good because 99.9% of viruses come from the internet. If you decide to buy avast, i belive it has a good management program that could allow you to manually update all computers at the same time.

 

I also enjoy it too.. But the problem is the infections always comes back after my return visit becoz of lack of resident protection..

Most of the infections are from USB FlashDrives or Pendrives.. I dont have any Internet Connection problem in my laptop becoz i have a Wireless Net connection using Cell Sites.. Except for places Cellphone signal dont exist..

 

I'm not sure what you can do, but I would make a priority of removing any desktop icon to 'Internet Explorer' and replace the browsers with www.opera.com or www.firefox.com

Then change the theme of firefox for example, to something which looks similar to internet explorer.

Not sure if GeSWall free would be allowed on school systems. Someone with more experience in the program could help. http://www.gentlesecurity.com/download.html

Overview:
http://www.gentlesecurity.com/overview.html

 

Can you disable opening applications from the flash drives and only allow pictures, videos etc? Most viruses come in the form of programs so if you can disable opening .exe files it should stop most viruses.

Your only other choice is a behaviour blocker since they don't require updates but it does require learning. Most educational institutions dont't allow un-approved applications anyway. So the children should not have .exe files on their usb.

 

You can many on-demand scanners like A2-Free, Kaspersky AVZ

These will clean out the spyware and can be used by commercial/educational institutions free of cost.

No, you can not. They are only for PERSONAL USE. If you want, you could use open-source AV like ClamAV. But they still lack in efficiency w.r.t commercial AV software. Alternatively, since I am sure you are running licensed MS Windows. You can use MS Windows Defender, without any issues.

ClamAV and MS Windows Defender. Maybe Spybot S&D also, but I think that is it.

Guess so. Both have very good detection, should remove almost everything.

Not really, my company just sacked 200 workers. Atleast you still have a job, that a big plus in these tough times.

WOW !! Maybe you should consider installing SuRUN.
See: https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=196737

Also If the computers are not used for saving any data on disk and only for practice, you could use MS Steady State. With it you can enforce strong policies and make system boot into a clean state after reboot.

 

Can you sandbox them?

 

It is not for avast!. I don't know about Avira.

PC Tools is licensed for this, I believe. Comodo may be another, as noted in this thread.

In my opinion, probably not. You will need some spyware removal tools, as well.

No, but it's a big one.

A few things to consider in an environment like that, one, that the AV can be password protected after setup. That way, you'll be more likely to have the protection in place without user interference. Also, if you can get the PC's networked, you can possibly connect one to internet that can serve as an update mirror, depending on what software you end up using. Unfortunately, this will probably rule out PCTAV, or Comodo as choices in that case.

As noted earlier, you can usually get substantial discounts for education and municipalities.

PM if I can provide further information.

Good luck! Go get the BAD GUYS!!

 

What a cool job.
Have a look at this. It's a flash disinfector. Don't know for sure, but it may be just what you need.

 

using something like returnil or similar on all the computers would be the best option IMO, easy to manage and effective.

 

As mentioned in this thread, Firefox would be half the battle if they do log into the internet. Also, try Sandboxie Free. There's a 5 second delay before using the browser. Install Comodo's AV only. This should help.

Ice

 

Returnil or Deep Freeze those school pc's instead of relying on anti-malware tools and user interaction.

 

agreed, that would be the most logical thing to do.

 

Im planning to add CounterSpy and A2 Squared Free to compliment Norton and Avira on scanning Adware/Spyware malwares..

This would be a definite solution to my problem.. Sometimes kids can wreck havok on a unprotected system like changing some settings of deleting some important system files.. Returnil or Deep Freeze would ease me from reinstalling Windows on some curropted systems..

 

As already mentioned DeepFreeze would be the ideal solution not only for malware but configurations mistakes from students (it's not free but they do have discounts for large numbers and institutions).

Out of curiosity, how do they get infected without the internet?

 

As already mentioned, Windows Steady State would be a good solution plus it adds other settings to tighten things up.

Disabling AutoRuns is a good idea on the machines that don't need it. http://windowssecrets.com/comp/071108

 

Its not all but around 30 to 40% has internet Connection.. Infections are from USB Flash Drives or Pen Drives.. Which is very much common here..