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Trend Micro InterScan 3

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PCQ Bureau
New Update

Trend Micro InterScan is a software suite that protects your organization against viruses, malicious code, and unwanted content. It consists of anti-virus programs with plug-ins for content filtering and e-mail management. It can sit either on your Internet gateway or on a machine between your network and the gateway, and stop viruses and unwanted content from entering or going out of your network. The antivirus part consists of three viruswalls–E-mail viruswall, Web viruswall, and FTP viruswall. As the names imply, E-mail viruswall scans your e-mail messages for viruses, Web viruswall monitors your HTTP traffic for viruses, and harmful Java and ActiveX applets, and FTP viruswall ensures safe transfer of FTP files. Content filtering and e-mail management are part of the eManager plug-in that needs to be separately installed from the CD. You can use these to filter junk mail, block mail containing offensive words, and set a time for sending attachments exceeding a certain size at off-peak hours. 

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Snapshot

Price: $290 for (10-25 users) $ 270 for 26-50 users



Features: Scans HTTP, FTP and SMTP servers; protects your network from viruses, malicious ActiveX controls and Java applets; includes content filtering and e-mail management features


Pros: Easy to install and configure


Cons: None 


Contact: Trend Micro. 


Tel: 022-6524345-7 


Fax: 6524344. 


107 Madhavan


Bandra Kurla


Bandra East


Mumbai 51. 


E-mail: Shamshad_ Ahmed@trend.com.tw 









To test all these features, we used an Exchange server for e-mail, an MS Internet Information Server for HTTP, and FTP services. InterScan also comes with a proxy server called CProxy. Installing InterScan is easy and doesn’t require much time to configure. The various viruswalls can be configured either through a Windows interface or a Web browser. The software is available for NT, Solaris, HP-UX, and Linux. We tested it on a Win NT 4.0 Server with Service Pack 6. 

The viruswalls start automatically as soon as you start your machine and works in the background. You can either install a viruswall on the same machine as the SMTP, FTP, or HTTP servers, or on a separate machine, depending upon your network setup. Whichever the case, the clients have to be configured to access the viruswalls instead of the servers directly. So all HTTP requests would first go to the Web viruswall instead of your HTTP server, and all FTP requests would first go to the FTP viruswall. At the client end, therefore, the IP address and port number of the corresponding viruswall has to be set. 

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To test its virus detection capability we first uploaded a few viruses on our HTTP/FTP servers and made them available for download to the users. When we tried downloading the file from a client machine, the viruswall was able to detect and block these viruses successfully. It also displays a message along with the name of the virus in the browser window. We then tested the E-mail viruswall by sending it some viruses from a user.

Here again, it was able to detect the virus successfully. You can also configure the viruswall to send a notification to the recipient and the administrator informing them of the virus. You can also specify the most common file types to scan, or even specify your own file type extension. This can be useful for catching the viruses that come with uncommon extensions like

kak.hta.

The eManager plug-in for content filtering and e-mail management needs to be installed on the machine having the e-mail viruswall. E-mail management is effective in managing your e-mail. For example, you can specify a time-period for sending international e-mail with different time zones. You can block spam mail based on certain keywords. You can also configure it so that e-mail with large attachments are delivered during off peak hours. 

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Under content filtering, the software has its own list of offensive words that you can choose from, or you can also specify your own words. E-mail containing these words will be blocked. We tried this feature with a couple of words and it was able to block all that mail successfully. You can also configure it to send notifications to the sender or administrator informing about the blocked e-mail and the reason for blocking. The activity monitor sits as a minimized icon on the taskbar and can be used to monitor the viruswall status. If the viruswall has blocked a mail, it displays a message in the activity monitor. 

Interscan is priced according to the number of seats. The price for 10-25 users is US $290 and for 26-50 users it is US $270. The rupees price depends on the current dollar exchange rate. 

Overall, it’s a useful and effective software to stop viruses and filter unwanted content on your network. 

Neelima Vaid at PCQ Labs

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