Overprotection?

[artkaye]

My home PC was recently attacked and as I bring work from the office, infected my PC at work. Had there not been a back-up I would have compromised the organization’s accounting files with grave consequences to my position. I had to re-format the hard drives and reinstall XP SP2 and other software.

I have now these security utilities at work on my home PC where I browse the internet:
• Antivirus - AVG Free and Antivir for additional scanning
• Anti-Trojan – a-squared
• Anti-Spyware – Spybot, Lavasoft , and Ewido for scanning
• Intrusion Detection – Winpatrol
• Firewall – Comodo
• Anti-rootkit – Sophos and Ice Sword

Am I not being paranoid about protection? Sometimes I feel these are too much.

Any advice?

Thanks.

[poppy4]

With all the malware out there I don't believe there is such a thing as 'over protection'. You have to be aware of not running more than one app at a time, so as to not cause problems, but having one firewall and av app running at a time is ok. I have not read good things about comodo, and I think there are better choices for firewalls. I use ZA free, which some folks don't like, but I have had no problems with and it does what it is supposed to do. I might suggest you add "script sentry" to your arsenal...(link in my sig).....like spywareBlaster, it installs and protects and does not run in the background, so no conflicts with other apps.
I use everything in my sig.....hth

[liam858]

I agree with Poppy, i wouldn't run 2 AV's at the same time, and i'd also recommend Zone Alarm as a good firewall, script sentry is also good as it is almost a "ghost" app, doesn't install anything, and runs silently, and if you open a file that could contain scripts it warns you.


Liam

[104456]

My home PC was recently attacked and as I bring work from the office, infected my PC at work. .

If you are doing work from home the company should either provided a dedicated piece of company equipment i.e. a laptop [patched and antivirus upto date] to specificaly do this work and no personal stuff or provide licensed secuirty software for you to install on your own PC at no cost to yourself.
If the second option there should be company policy in place to ensure either any foriegn [external] equipment or data attached or loaded onto the company network is scanned by their own in-house software before it is allowed to be used.
The other option is for the comapany to provide a dedicated network connection which isolates the hardware or software from the internal network to prevent the ingress of virus or malware and the loss of company data.
I would seek advice from your comany administrator as to the best policy if only to cover your derriere should it happen again.It is easy to get into trouble for not following company policy in this regard which could lead to disiplinary action.

[HAN]

Based on objective tests I've seen...

My 2 cents is that of the 2 AVs you are using, AntiVir is the stronger of the 2. I'd run it real-time and use something else (AVG or whatever) as the backup manual scanner.

[artkaye]

Thank you, 104456. That's what happens when a "Virtual Med Student" is the de-facto administrator! I have become more knowledgeable after reading about the functions of the administrator and have become more security conscious. I have set up the second option as you advised.

I had to stop using ZoneAlarm because it intefered with my e-mail client and AVG. I have found Comodo very useful as it continues to serve me well. I have had questions for the the reviews that do not say good things about Comodo. Well, one man's meat .....

Thanks, Han, it was a suggestion that got me to add Antivir as a back up manual scanner. If your suggestion to make it real-time is supported in subsequent replies, I will surely consider it.
After all, since poppy4 says there is nothing like 'over protection', I shall also add Script Sentry.

You guys at VirtualDr should be award winners!

[HAN]

artkaye: Here is a link to a well respected objective antivirus test site. http://www.av-comparatives.org/
The tests are listed under the Comparatives tab. The retrospective/pro active tests expose an AV's ability to deter new, less known or unknown threats. The on-demand tests check the AV's ability to find known malware.

If you go over the results, you'll see that AntiVir (aka AVIRA) provides much better protection than AVG. Thus my recommendation.

One other thing to mention about AntiVir. The free version does not come with an email scanner. IMO, this is not a big deal. Just save any attachments you may receive and manually scan them before opening. As for any other email related concerns, the real-time scanner will provide the protection.

One last thing to clarify... IMO, as already noted, you definitely should not run two AVs in real-time. This could lead to less safety, not more.

[104456]

If your the Admin and you have a software budget then Id suggest moving away from freeware applications like AVG and moving to a more proffesional installation like NOD32,Sophos or Symantec AntiVirus Corporate Edition,

Thank you, 104456. That's what happens when a "Virtual Med Student" is the de-facto administrator!

Then if others have access to the systems Id suggest you bring in a policy in much the same regard as I mentioned above after all you dont want anybody else to infevt your system do you.