F-Secure Internet Security 2007

F-Secure Internet Security 2007 provides complete protection against Internet

threats and is easy to use. It comprises of core facilities of anti-virus,

firewall, anti-spyware, anti-spam, and parental control. The 2007 version also

includes Deepguard for monitoring suspicious program behavior and stopping

corrupt programs from running and making sure that no malicious program can

affect the computers even if the latest updates are not available. The 2007

version includes Host based intrusion protection (HIPS). The 2006 version had a

third party anti spyware engine, which has been improved mainly due to the use

of technology framework provided by Deepguard. The parental lock option takes

care of protecting your children against unwanted Internet content.

We tested the software with various viruses, spyware, malwares and also

attacked the system with backtrack to check its firewall strength. In the virus

test, we installed some of the latest viruses on the system and then installed

F-Secure. It detected the viruses in real time. The zipped folder containing

viruses (which we dumped from a CD to the hard disk) got detected once we ran a

complete system scan or when we tried installing the viruses. We tested it with

several malware programs, like aquarium (screensaver), messenger installer (MSN

Emotion pack), Screen Saver (Dragonball character studios), sinstaller, and it

detected all of them in real time, while they were being installed. We attacked

the system with DOS attacks, arp spoofs, nmap and it detected all of them too.

In the Firewall option, you can set rules for checking FTP data transfer for viruses, worms and malicious attacks

This proves that its firewall is very good and can resist such attacks. In

arp spoof, it didn't report for any attack but, it also didn't allow the spoof

block Internet traffic completely, though the speed was reduced a little. It

detected nmap attacks in real time and fixed them effectively. We then attacked

it with Nessus, and it detected all threats and blocked bad data packets. By

default, the UDP port was activated, which resulted in computer name and MAC

address being passed to the system running Nessus. However, this could be

prevented by closing the UDP port. We also configured a mail account in Outlook

Express and sent some spam and phishing mails to that account. F-Secure

successfully detected them all. It had a separate folder for phishing mails and

disposed all spam mails to junk folder.

The program is particularly easy to control, with a logically laid out

interface. It has a simple control panel. F-secure need lots of free space i.e.

nearly 500 MB. The database update mechanism has been modified to use less

bandwidth while still maintaining the same level of protection. Overall, it

performed well against all kinds of attacks.

Bottom line: A good Internet Security suite for this price tag.