advice for Network Virus/Firewall protection

  • Thread starter Thread starter Ian Roberts
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I

Ian Roberts

Hi

I'm very experienced with stand alones and just need some info about
antivirus and firewalls for networks.

My uncle has a small office network which was put together some years ago.
It
comprises 1 server and 3 clients - all running windows 98.

He's asked me to sort out a few problems. Which I wont go into here.

One thing I want to ensure is that they have adequate virus and firewall
protection.

I'd appreciate any advice on suitable software for a small office network
that is approx 5 years old - they dont have the budget to upgrade their pc's
and software just now. And it seems adequate anyway for the level of work
they are doing.

Also links to any sites with relevant info would be very helpful.

Thanks for your time.

Ian



Thanks

Ian
 
Ian said:
I'm very experienced with stand alones and just need some info about
antivirus and firewalls for networks.

My uncle has a small office network which was put together some years ago.
It comprises 1 server and 3 clients - all running windows 98.
Click to expand...
One thing I want to ensure is that they have adequate virus and firewall
protection.
Click to expand...
I'd appreciate any advice on suitable software for a small office network
that is approx 5 years old - they dont have the budget to upgrade their pc's
and software just now. And it seems adequate anyway for the level of work
they are doing.
Click to expand...

1. FREE Windows 9x Update CD
http://www.microsoft.com/security/protect/cd/order.asp

2. An OLD version firewall (ie, NOT the current HOGware)
Kerio 2.1.5 (if you understand packet filtering)
Google for a current link.
ZoneAlarm 2.6
http://www.oldversion.com/program.php?n=zalarm

3. One of the free small AV programs (AntiVir or Grisoft):
they are smaller, lighter, and more functional than
the Norton / McAfee HOGware. Keep in mind that many
of the most recent viruses have infected a LOT of
boxes BEFORE there were AV signature updates to
cope with them. AV programs are NOT adequate or
complete anti-virus protection.

4. Try using Thunderbird / Firefox instead of IE.
http://mozilla.org/

Doing so will increase your security immeasurably, since
they don't support ActiveX, don't offer 1-click activation
of viruses, and so on. Essentially, Mozilla / Thunderbird
users have been immune to all of the most recent viruses.
(Clueless users would be OK, because they can't figure out
how to open attachments, but half-smart bozos can screw
things up no matter what you do!)

My experience has been that if you show the users how to
use tabbed browsing, and turn on pop-up blocking, they
will come to PREFER the Mozilla products to IE in a day
or less. You COULD just download Mozilla 1.6, but on old
low memory machines, the individual clients will
perform better.

Keep in mind that, for security, you STILL need to upgrade
to the current IE6 (which is on the CD), since many programs
still will use IE behind your back.


5. Consider spending $300 for a new machine, downloading IPCop,
and putting a REAL firewall and gateway in place.
http://www.ipcop.org/

$300 IBM 866mhz PIII:
http://store.yahoo.com/saveateaglestore/ibmneta46579.html

(from a notice I rec'd this AM -- I've purchased from them
successfully in the past, but YMMV! _caveat emptor_)

6. Failing that, put a cheap NAT'g router between them
and the Internet.
 
Hi

I'm very experienced with stand alones and just need some info about
antivirus and firewalls for networks.

My uncle has a small office network which was put together some years
ago. It
comprises 1 server and 3 clients - all running windows 98.
Click to expand...

What is the gateway device, the server or NAT router?
He's asked me to sort out a few problems. Which I wont go into here.

One thing I want to ensure is that they have adequate virus and
firewall protection.
Click to expand...

One of the free FW's such as ZA, Kerio, Outpost, Sygate may be able to
meet the requirements. You may want to lean more towards ZA as it is more
user friendly than the others. And you will not get in to deep support of
the ZA as you may with some of the others.

As far as AV, NOD32 www.nod32.com and the workstation version will run on
a server. But there are other AV products as well that are good.

Duane :)
 
Ian Roberts said:
Hi

I'm very experienced with stand alones and just need some info about
antivirus and firewalls for networks.

My uncle has a small office network which was put together some years ago.
It
comprises 1 server and 3 clients - all running windows 98.

He's asked me to sort out a few problems. Which I wont go into here.

One thing I want to ensure is that they have adequate virus and firewall
protection.

I'd appreciate any advice on suitable software for a small office network
that is approx 5 years old - they dont have the budget to upgrade their pc's
and software just now. And it seems adequate anyway for the level of work
they are doing.

Also links to any sites with relevant info would be very helpful.

Thanks for your time.

Ian
Click to expand...

Put in a real appliance such as the Fortigate 50A. It will do autmoatically
updated gateway antivirus and intrusion detection, serve as your VPN server
if you move to that direction, as well as providing firewall and gateway
services to your network. Overall costs are minimal compared to fooling
around with personal firewalls and goofy LinkSys devices. It can even do
rudimentary spam filtering though this feature is still in its infancy. All
of this at near wire speed and with the reliability of an purpose built
appliance with no moving parts.

http://www.fortinet.com

-Russ.
 
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