Workstation Security setup?

Hey, all. This is my first post here -- don't kill me.

I'm new to IT, and am going to be running a server and workstations under the same AV progs. We're a startup running basic programs only (firefox, Office suite, Photoshop).

I'm looking for basic input; I'm looking for something that will be 97-99% secure in totality, and that won't leave a large footprint. Price isn't really an issue.

The planned installation is:

Treatfire
Spy Sweeper
Nod32

Any ideas? Will this do?

Thanks, all.

-HF

 

Remove Spy Sweeper since it can be heavy. NOD32 + Threatfire should provide good protection.

 

Yea a good AV and behavior blocker should do so you setup seems fine. Maybe you want to have backup software or use an offline service like mozy just in case anything does happen and your work files are lost.

Cheers
Jeremy

 

We're planning on rocking a few USB hds (of varying backup dates, so that longer-back restores can occur) and an offsite for backup.

And contrary to what I wanted earlier, I kind of want to test out KIS, Counterspy, and BoClean together.

What matters most is that the false positives are low, since the office users would freak if they saw any (computer illiteracy), and that scan times are not too bad (since they expect things to come up at once).

A virus wouldn't devastate us, but I'd really rather us not get it. Thus, trying to come up with the most effective suite combo is literally killing me -- it's the one thing that's holding up my buy order.

So, any other ideas? Keep Threatfire, or rock BoClean? Screw CounterSpy?

(and thanks for the suggestions already thrown in.)

 

Firstly, I would steer clear of KAV due to the infamous chkdsk issue. Search the forum or Google for details on that. Why take chances when you don't have to? Nod32 is quite good, it will serve you fine. That combined with Threatfire is a good choice.. I personally think that's all you need. Try to keep it simple and resist the temptation to get bogged down with too many apps... Then as a final measure, take an image of each setup. That will ensure that you can recover from any disaster that (however unlikely) may happen..

 

Alright. The reason why I was heavier on programs is since all documents are going to be located on the server itself, not a local machine (meaning that a virus would most likely spread like wildfire if it ever got on).

What imaging program would you recommend?

Something like Deep Freeze?

 

For imaging I use Paragon but Ive heard good things about ShadowProtect too.

Also Deep Freeze isnt an imaging program. What it does is revert all changes upon reboot. So for example if you install a program while Deep Freeze is enabled, the program would be gone when you reboot the computer.

 

I'm not really qualified to recommend any particular one since I've only tried one simple one called Drive Snapshot, which worked well for me, but there are many others, probably with more features etc.. There are also many folks here who have tried and used them. So I will let them respond to this question..

 

replace spysweeper with superantispyware pro or counterspy.
for imaging shadow protect desktop since it can do up to 15minute incremental images with little impact on resourses.
lodore

 

What did you guys do to harden vista?

I can do a vLite install, but harden-it and secure-it haven't been updated since '05, and I'm not sure about how pretty WWDC will play. And I was going to grab AutoPatcher Vista, but the downloads page is 404 for the moment. (huh?)

So, what ideas do y'all have for hardening the new, shiny OS?

(And seriously, thanks you all the input that has been given so far.)

 

You can try XP-Antispy and/or Vispa.

 

eSet NOD 3.0 AV and Threatfire work together very harmoniously -- but when I added Counterspy (or Spysweeper, but to a much lesser extent) the computer's browsetime was pretty impacted. Any other programs which could fill the void -- be good, but not kill the CPU?

 

Try SUPERAntiSpyware Pro, otherwise you could just stay with only NOD32/Threatfire.