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Sophos’ Anti-Virus

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PCQ Bureau
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Sophos Anti-Virus is targeted at company networks. So, it has separate client/server versions for a whole range of platforms, including Windows, UNIX, OS/2, and NetWare. An apparent advantage is easier deployment and management. The installation files can be placed on a server for installation on clients across the network. Also the virus updates needn’t be downloaded by each user, but the server downloads and keeps them ready. Whenever a client machine is switched on, it automatically checks and downloads any available updates from the server. Thus the load on the server and network is distributed, and users don’t have to remember to update their anti-virus clients.

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The low priority mode lets you work on multiple applications while it scans your system in the background

SOPHOS ANTI-VIRUS 3.50



Price: (per user per year)


10 users: Rs 2,500 


15-24 users: Rs 2,000


Meant for: Offices


Features: On-access scanning, real-time monitor, scheduling, supports multiple platforms 


Pros: Automatic updates of anti-virus by clients at startup; easy to deploy and manage on a network; available for a whole range of platforms; checksum virus scanning reduces processor usage


Cons: Server doesn’t automatically download virus updates


Contact: RAS Infotech. Tel: 040-3401430 Fax: 3401059. 6-3-698 A, 1 Floor, Pawani Plaza,
Punjagutta, Hyderabad 500082. www.rasinfotech.com,

www.sophos.com



E-mail: dileep@rasinfotech.com







Moving on to the Sophos Anti-Virus client, we checked it out on a machine running Windows Me. It has a component called InterCheck, which provides real-time virus scanning. This detects infected files as soon as you access them. A neat feature here is that when the anti-virus is installed for the first time, it generates and allocates a checksum to all files on your system. After that, instead of scanning the entire files, only their checksum is compared. This helps in lowering processor usage considerably. After a reboot you will see an icon called InterCheck Monitor added in your taskbar, which runs in the background. Besides this, you can do on demand and scheduled scans on files and folders you want. Two scanning methods are supported, Quick and Full. Quick scans only those portions of files that are most likely to be infected. Full scans the entire file. It also has two priority modes, low, which uses lesser system resources, and Normal mode.

Infected files can be automatically disinfected or after user confirmation. They can also be renamed, deleted, moved, copied or shredded. You can create a log file, every time a virus is found. We tried copying a few virus-infected files from floppies, hard drives, and even through e-mails, and it easily detected all of them.

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The Intercheck component can be configured from the server, and the settings will automatically take place on the client machines. If you don’t have a server, then configuring the InterCheck component is not so simple, and involves editing a configuration file in notepad for each

client.

One problem we found with the server version of Sophos Anti-Virus on Windows NT was that you have to manually download the anti-virus updates. Once this is done, the clients will automatically pick up the updates. However, a good thing here is that it does incremental updates, so downloads are not huge. Sophos does, however, provide its users a CD containing all updates at the beginning of every month. You can also subscribe for regular notifications and updates by e-mail. It also has a Virus Library Viewer, which contains a database of viruses with information on them as well as the procedure for removing them.

Sophos Anti-Virus is a pretty good solution for networks, small and large.

Sachin Makhija at PCQ Labs

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