Features

Ever since the first days of the PC two decades ago, storage systems have crashed, resulting in the potential for lost data or, if you're lucky, a large bill for the recovery of your data. Major companies, of course, have turned to a variety of backup mechanisms, including tape-based systems, to ensure their data is backed up reliably, but, apart from backing up to CD-ROM, small to medium-sized businesses have been limited in terms of cost-effective backup.

Softwin's BitDefender looks and feels rather like an old-school anti-virus product, but its performance belies its exterior. The product integrates with Microsoft's VS-API for Exchange. Installing it required a restart.

This is one product that has been on the computer security scene for quite some time and Control Break International has continued to develop its solutions over the years, despite many of its earlier competitors falling by the wayside.

Because it can circumvent many existing content-management solutions, instant messaging (IM) is causing security concerns among IT managers, which often leads them to ban its use altogether.
However, IM can have business benefits if used responsibly, because it offers instantaneous communication and immediately indicates whether colleagues are online. What is needed is a way of allowing the use of IM, while controlling it and enforcing rules on employees.

Maintaining the security of an organization's laptops and desktops is never an easy task, with many a sleepless night worrying if all devices that come into contact with the enterprise are secured against theft and compromised data. Managing all this can be an overwhelming task.
GlobalAdmin is a management application that is used in conjunction with GTGI's other products, CryptCard and CompuSec. Our review kit came ready prepared on a Dell Optiplex GX400 PC running Windows 2000. We just had to plug in the relevant devices for reading smartcards.

For some time now, the problem for security professionals has not been "do I need AV protection" but more specifically "which one is best for my corporate needs." But with so many other danger areas for security administrators to concentrate on, leading to the provision of intrusion detection systems, intrusion prevention systems, firewalls and virtual private networks, to name but a few, it is crucial to make the right decision when they have a large array of other security solutions already running.
Providing all you need for network screening and stability can be a tall order, so whichever anti-virus solution is relied upon - software- or hardware-based, or a mix of both - it has to be dependable, be able to fully integrate with everything else running on the network, and provide 100 per cent system integrity.

Trend Micro offers a product that comes more or less in the middle of the charts throughout this test, doing nothing spectacularly well, but not making any major mistakes either.

This test was a surprise, with performance and default settings letting Symantec down, although the presentation couldn't be better.

Norman delivered quick and efficient performance, with acceptable, but unexceptional, reporting. Installation required Norman Virus Control to be installed first, for the AV engine. No reboot was required and, if anything, a surprising lack of feedback resulted - the software just quietly went to work with the default server configuration.

Kaspersky has come up trumps with very fast software with some neat features. Queuing the mail was just moments slower than the top runners with 49 minutes, but processing was fastest of the lot at 107, and it nearly tops the efficiency chart too, with 4,055 scanned.

In last year's anti-virus management group test, Hauri's product impressed us with a slick interface and strong set of features. In this test, first impressions were similar. Configuration was quick and easy and the interface excellent - limited options compared to other products, but ample for most users. No reboot was required and the software demanded confirmation that the empty admin password required was in fact correct.