The Network Administrator

In the world of enterprise client/server managed  antivirus there are really three big players as I see it, Symantec, McAfee, Webroot and TrendMicro. Antivirus and spam are not going anywhere, in fact with the west coast business style influence rapidly being adopted many corporations are relaxing the web filter which can allow even more undesirable sludge to come in.

The GFI Vipre is a total security suite http://www.gfi.com/business-antivirus-software

which will give you antivirus, antispyware protection, client firewall and malicious website filtering technologies that will protect you from this rapidly growing & ever changing attacks.

The Vipre antivirus enterprise install was really painless. Like many others you can choose to install a standalone database or you can add the database to one of your dedicated database servers. Once installed deployed the client agent was very easy, I have used other product where this simple task is so involved and requires a lot of admin overhead! The other thing I absolutely love about VIPRE, it is fast efficient technology in single, powerful threat engine with low impact on system resources. I have used other solutions where between memory and cpu utilization the systems can be unusable at time during the scan.

The  interface  does not have any complicated functions or options. Everything that can be set up in this program with just a few click of a mouse which is great!

Compatibility
Windows 2000, XP, Server 2003, Vista, Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7, 32 bit and 64 bit.

Performance

A full-system manual scan only used 25% of CPU during my testing. The RAM utilization during scan was only 65MB. There was no noticeable lag time during whole system scanning.

2007_GFI VIPRE Antivirus Business is available in two editions:

• VIPRE Antivirus Business: Includes antivirus and antispyware protection
• VIPRE Antivirus Business Premium: Includes antivirus, antispyware, firewall and malicious web filtering

The features below are available with both editions unless otherwise noted.
(Features available exclusively within a particular edition are listed further on in this page.)

Proprietary anti-malware detection engine uses next-generation technology
At VIPRE’s core is an anti-malware engine that merges the detection of viruses, worms, spyware, Trojans, bots, and rootkits into a single efficient and powerful system. VIPRE Antivirus Business utilizes an advanced technology stack to perform high speed threat scanning to analyze large volumes of information for malware threats in a short period of time with limited performance impact on the end user’s PC.

Real-time monitoring and protection against zero-day threats
VIPRE delivers real time monitoring and protection against known and unknown malware threats and leverages a number of proprietary malware detection methods, including dynamic code translation (the fastest method of file emulation), heuristics, behavioral analysis and traditional signature-based methods.

VIPRE analyzes the behavior of malware using the following technologies:

• Active Protection™ – Real-time detection that works automatically inside the Windows kernel, watching for malware and stopping it before it has a chance to execute on a user’s system.  In addition, administrators can layer their own additional protection rules (“Monitors”) to look for specific types of behavior. 
• MX-Virtualization™ (MX-V) – The built-in MX-V malware analysis technology rapidly analyzes potential malware by observing its behavior in a virtual environment so that malware is caught before it actually executes on a user’s machine. Because MX-V uses the fastest emulation technique available, Dynamic Translation, it is extremely fast – able to do its work without compromising system performance. The integration of MX-V helps protect users from many unidentified or new variants of malware.
• Genscan™ and Cobra™ heuristics – Uses dynamic pattern assessment to determine if a sample is malware.

Integrated endpoint email security
VIPRE includes comprehensive protection against email viruses, with direct support for Outlook, Outlook Express and Windows Mail; and support for any email program that uses POP3 and SMTP. Additionally, the built-in anti-phishing feature blocks access to phishing websites by stripping out emails that contain phishing links. 

Real time live threat data integration
VIPRE benefits from multiple sources for its threat definition updates with live threat data from GFI Labs integrated directly into VIPRE. GFI Labs processes tens of thousands of malware samples a day and leverages the following:

• ThreatNet™ – GFI’s user community of hundreds of thousands of VIPRE consumer users that anonymously send information on possible threats to GFI.
• GFI CWSandbox™ – A leading automated malware behavior analysis tool for fast and autonomous analysis of large volumes of malware samples.
• ThreatTrack™ – GFI Labs’ data feeds that include the latest malicious URLs used to block bad websites and phishing emails.

Centralized management and easy deployment
VIPRE Antivirus Business is easy to manage and deploy with a simple-to-use platform that provides comprehensive and powerful endpoint protection for all managed desktops and corporate laptops.

• A single agent delivers antivirus and antispyware protection, with client firewall, intrusion prevention, and web filtering in the VIPRE Antivirus Business Premium version, all handled through a robust central management console.
• Access and control agent deployment, threat database updates, quarantined malware, configuration, agent policies, scan scheduling, and recommended actions to identified malware threats.
• Agents can be deployed using silent push install (using either WMI or RPC and admin shares), as an MSI file or a self-extracting executable, or auto-deployed through Active Directory or IP ranges and subnets.

Powerful, scanning agent technology
Superior scanning intelligence that is Checkmark Anti-Virus Desktop certified and VB100 certified. VIPRE delivers high detection rates and fast updates for new exploits.

Advanced anti-rootkit technology
Finds and disables malicious hidden processes, threats, modules, services, files or Alternate Data Streams (ADS) on a user’s system.

Auto-scan removable drives
For self-running media such as USB drives, VIPRE scans autorun.inf and associated files, plus all files on any removable device when it is inserted.

Multi-site tiering model
Scalable and flexible multi-site tiering model for large-scale deployments enables distribution of IT workload, allowing regional IT staff to manage local incidents with a consolidated data view of all servers throughout your network. Control multiple physical locations by tiering at the policy level through granular role-based access control or multi-site configuration.

Role-based access control
Granular role-based permissions ensure appropriate access and control for all administrators by region, and function.

Policy-based management
Comprehensive policy creation and management functionality gives you flexibility to control scheduling of scans and all agent options.

Support for Mac Client
Support for Macintosh computers running Mac OS X versions 10.5 and 10.6. Designed with the Mac OS look and feel for an easy and positive user experience.

Flexible Reporting
The VIPRE Antivirus Business reporting features make it easy for administrators to schedule and customize its library of reports. A report scheduler allows you to easily schedule any report to run at a designated time with the ability to email reports to specified users; simplifying report distribution to management. Additionally, a stand-alone report viewer enables you to provide executive management access to all data in any format without giving them access to the console or database.

Integration for NAC support
As an OESIS-OK Gold Certified product, VIPRE provides seamless integrated control and visibility from the gateway to the desktop when using any OESIS-enabled device, including the market-leading NACs and SSL VPN gateways from vendors such as Cisco, F5, Juniper, Microsoft, SonicWALL, HP, Dell, and TippingPoint.

Compatibility
VIPRE is compatible with Windows 2000, XP, Server 2003, Vista, Server 2008, Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7, 32- and 64-bit.

Features of GFI VIPRE Antivirus Business Premium Edition

Bi-directional firewall and web filtering in Premium version

The VIPRE Antivirus Business Premium edition delivers client firewall, host-based intrusion prevention (HIPS), network intrusion prevention (NIPS), and an intrusion detection system (IDS) that proactively protects against exploits and zero-day threats.

• Unique IDS functionality – Included in VIPRE are pre-defined IDS rules that are updated through VIPRE threat signatures. Administrators also have the ability to write detailed rules based on the Snort^® language to complement their own security profile.  Rules can be made to block admin-defined inbound or outbound traffic.
• Boot time firewall – The Boot Time feature allows administrators to limit access on a desktop to only certain network resources upon loading.
• Ad blocking – Automatically block third-party advertisements to reduce web page clutter.
• Script blocking – Optionally block Java script, VB scripts, and ActiveX controls.
• Bad URL blocking – Bad website blocking that uses the comprehensive ThreatTrack™ malicious URL feeds from GFI Labs™.
• Anti-phishing – Blocks access to known phishing websites by email or through the web browser.