Free Small Business protection?

It does Not have to do with Microsoft; it's rather a country-legislation issue: mostly in Middle East and Africa.

Definitely.

Yeap...that's another cause.

 

OK, so besides MSE on 10 computers, Comodo and possibly Panda Cloud, what other, if any, antivirus programs are free to use at a small business (less than 5 PC's) ?

 

@acr1965

Have a look here perhaps?

List of Free Antivirus for Commercial use in Corporate and Business

 

Have a look at my sig, it is an Ultimate windows7, but I only use Pro gpedit/GPO settings. I recently tried it against some PoC's (e.g. a flash movie triggering a drive by, and a Win7 UAC bypass), see PIC


Or make you selection of the GPO goodies and add Comodo on top of this. Set it up, like I explained here https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=339661 In stead of the FW only, you could set it up sameway for CIS

 

This one?

 

With less than 5 PCs, you could probably use most of the free ones. I'd find one you like and email them, if they don't explicitly allow for your environment.

I'd keep it simple, though, and use LUA, disable autoruns, and use just one or maybe two security programs. The fine tuned/tweaked/software heavy setups that we like to do here can quickly turn into a nightmare in a business environment; especially a very small business that isn't going to have uniform workstations and strong/detailed acceptable use policies (which is actually worth a lot more than any security software beyond the basic security suite). Obviously things like LUA and some of the basics are valuable, but you can bet that people will discover all of the possible pitfalls of any and all security, so keeping things standard will keep complaints and downtime to a minimum (and complaints can be more easily handled if you have an acceptable use policy, which gives you authority to say "no" when they want to install every suspicious screensaver and game on the internet).

You might really want to consider using a paid solution, though; don't underestimate the value of support in a business environment (especially a small one like that).

 

I'd use MSE and further all OS features as SUA, UAC High, GPO settings as mentioned above, perhaps add EMET.
Further Chrome (with Safe browsing) and AdblockPlus.
If a one-time investment with small yearly costs is possible, check for routers like Sitecom X-Series2.0 with Cloud Security link.
Sitecom Cloud Security is actually rebranded 'HitmanPro3-in-the-router', also offering ad blocking, url scanning/site blocking. link
The yearly subscription costs were something like $20 in 2011/12; only $2/yr per workstation, a small price for such a strong second-opinion scanner.
With such a solution you won't have to focus on malware detection/removal so much but on making full use of the Win7Pro OS options available.

 

Great post.

At work our computers (xp, wp7) are more or less configured like my signature and so far no infections.

 

Locking the PC down through Windows Policies and User Accounts seems like the best way but its a PITA when you know nothing about it . . . Like me. In fact i once screwed up my Windows Admin account and had to reformat it.

 

List of Free Antivirus for Commercial use in Corporate and Business (Raymond.cc)
-http://www.raymond.cc/blog/free-antivirus-for-corporate-commercial-and-educational-use/

 

Why lock yourself down while possible to feel free with the same result of no infections? ;-)

 

It's to lock down the users not himself.

 

Well, it's better way
Users must be locked down as much as possible. But I believe some power and trusted users could be encouraged by giving them more possibilities.

For example I cannot work in heavily restricted corporate environment. I need my customizations.
So when I'm a chief - my workers aren't overlocked down too. I set up their PCs like my own - for both flexibility and security.

And without huge IS-bundles, sure