Vnunet.com has an interesting article about the latest test results of Virus Bulletin. Major vendors such as Sophos, Trend Micro and Kapersky failed to protect against some of the viruses in their collection. I found it quite interesting that Microsoft, a newcomer in this field, passed their test.

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Microsoft new malware database is online now. Such a virus encyclopedia is quite useful if one of your machines gets infected by a virus and your antivirus software is not able to get it under control. You can then search for technical background information and ways to get rid of the pest. It is advisable not to rely on just one virus database, though.

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Techworld.com has an interesting article about a new test from AV Comparatives. According to this new survey Microsoft OneCare ranks 14th out of 17. Some time ago, I blogged about a report where Microsoft’s scan engine had the poorest detection rate of all tested antivirus tools.

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I wanted to try Forefront Client Security (FSC), Microsoft’s new desktop antivirus software for the enterprise, already for quite some time. Today, I thought I could just have a quick look at it even though I am still busy exploring Windows Server 2008.

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It’s my first day after vacation, and I am somewhat overwhelmed by the number of new releases relevant to my work, even though, I tried to keep myself updated through my RSS feeds. This post is more or less a to-do-list for me. If you are sys admin in a Windows shop, you’re probably in the same situation.

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AV-Comparatives, an Austria-based project, compared 12 antivirus tools and only Microsoft’s Windows Live OneCare failed their test. OneCare only spotted 82.2% of 500,000 viruses. We’ve been considering moving from Sophos Antivirus to Microsoft Forefront Client Security, but this test doesn’t really inspire confidence in Microsoft’s new anti-malware tool for corporate environments since OneCare and Forefront use the same scan engine.

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Sometime ago there was a debate on 4sysops about the use of outbound filtering for personal firewalls. Some argued that once malware got started on the desktop, it is already too late to stop it with a personal firewall. I recently tested the outbound filter of Vista’s firewall. In my view, it makes sense for standard users to use it, but not, probably, for administrators.

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You might have realized in the past days that 4sysops was unreachable sometimes. There have been content spam attacks from countless different machines resulting in DDOS (Distributed Denial of Service).

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Microsoft Forefront Client Security Beta (formerly Microsoft Client Protection) can now be downloaded at Microsoft Connect. The final of Microsoft’s malware protection software for business desktops, laptops and servers is scheduled for the 2^nd quarter of 2007. I just skimmed over its product description. Forefront Client Security (FCS) could be a very interesting solution for mere Windows shops.

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James Bannan discusses an interesting issue on APC magazine about UAC of Windows Vista. The simple tool tweakvista allows you to disable UAC without prompting for confirmation. This means that any malware which manages to get itself running on you computer can do the same. Remember, UAC’s purpose is to warn you that something which could be dangerous is going on.

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