Microsoft released a beta of their antispyware software this week. The release notes caution to disable realtime scanning to avoid interference with Enterprise management tools.
As you might expect, I found the GUI to be quite nice compared to other antispyware programs. That’s not Microsoft being GUI-centric, its still the same as what GIANT was using in their software. I liked the install encouraging users to run a scheduled scan and have automatic updates. My first scan found a false positive in WinPCap. I was able to tell it to ignore that forever.
There is not currently any Enterprise management capability to this software. GIANT was working on controlling setting via Group Policy so we hope Microsoft will continue down that path. I have also heard they are looking at releasing updates via SUS so there will be centralized updates.
The program looks pretty nice and will likely be a future leader in enterprise antispyware applications. But for now, I’m happy we’ve made the decision to go with Webroot. I just hope we get Webroot deployed before Microsoft has a viable enterprise antispyware solution.
Archive for January 2005
Microsoft Antispyware
Back to School
School is starting back up for the semester. That may give me some new ideas for things to write about, but will also suck up all available free time, making it less likely for me to write. We’ll see how that goes.
I Predict 2005
I predict
- Microsoft’s new antispyware beta will not be released until march. Upon release it will quarantine as spyware both the real player and iTunes clients.
- Steve Gibson will issue dire warnings that Windows Longhorn includes a dastardly denial of service attack weapon known as “ping”.
- Sick of the constant negativity, one of the two readers of Roger’s Infosec Blog will hack the webserver and replace the website with sales literature from Computer Associates.
- An Antivirus company will be severely embarrassed when it is discovered that several of their former engineers now work for the mafia developing spyware and spam designed to circumvent filters
- Rob Rosenberger will get a late night show on comedy central. It will be canceled after three episodes because no one gets antivirus humor.
