Re: PC security suites (was Weird Outlook (maybe) problem)

[Dan <dan27649@xxxxxxxxx>]

Agreed with your points, John, but <g> *in practice*, or at least in my
experience, the suites typically put more of a drag on performance than do
the individual pieces.  I admit being surprised at this finding, and maybe
it's a YMMV thing, since there are so many factors in play.  Or, maybe it's
my poor choice of suites.  ;-)

- Dan

On 6/8/07, Jones, John (US) <John.Jones@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> The link to Windows Secrets does in fact recommend a suite.  They used
> to do point products; I can't recall when they changed.
>
> Recommendations aside, suites can potentially be more efficient than
> point products.  McAfee Enterprise, for instance, uses one engine for AV
> + AS so a single scan covers both.  That can mean a lot less overhead
> (RAM, CPU, processing time) than having product A do the AV scan then
> product B scans it for spyware while product C is monitoring LAN traffic
> while product D filters spam.
>
> Of additional potential value is the trend towards blended threats where
> a virus contains spyware (or some other combo).  There's no reason why
> this scenario couldn't occur: A standalone AV package skips a threat as
> they've chosen to classify it as spyware while the AS vendor could do
> the reverse; classify it as a virus and not update their
> definition/detection engine.  Result: The malware gets by both packages
> and infects your PC.  A suite shouldn't be susceptible to this scenario.