Antivirus is not enough

Psst: Can You Keep A Secret? over at Biztech Magazine tells the story of a SME that seemed to be relying solely on their antivirus software to provide protection and as a result suffered a devastating virus outbreak.

“Small businesses are definitely more at risk than large businesses with respect to security because if they are attacked and their information is compromised, they can go out of business quickly,” observes Dr. Sushil Jajodia, director of the Center for Secure Information Systems at George Mason University. “As such, there is very little margin for error.”

While there’s no mention of Least Privilege Security, there are some encouraging signs:

MobiTV also customizes domain policies to enforce and lock down different aspects of its Windows and Linux machines and uses monitoring agents that not only report back performance and health statistics but also monitor for security events and patch management gaps.

Two more book reviews

Another short review of Least Privilege Security for Windows 7, Vista and XP at Ward Vissers:

I have read already some chapters. I think it is a great book to have on your collection.
You have always not enough time thinking about security. This book does it for you.

And here at Anything about IT:

I haven’t read the entire book yet, but from what i have seen thus far, it’s definitely a must have for any IT Pro who working within the Client Desktop management space. I’ll submit further feedback when I have completed the review.

AV alone is not enough

According to an article on Help Net Security, AV vendors detect on average 19% of malware attacks, a recent study by Cyveillance claims that the most popular antivirus products detect less than 19% of new malware threats, and that rate increases only to to 61.7% after 30 days.

Top AV solutions take an average of 11.6 days to catch up to new malware. Since this does not include malware signatures undetected even after 30 days, users should not rely on the AV industry as their only line of defense.

The full report can be downloaded here (registration required).

Inadequate Security

It’s no surprise that in a recent survey of 488 IT workers, according to IT PRO, two thirds of them claim that security is not mission critical to their company. Tom Gaffney of F-Secure thinks that desktop security is a non-starter:

Gaffney expressed concerns over whether top level executives will ever recognise how important security is.

“I am very skeptical they ever will. That is the reality we have seen already in the desktop world,” he told IT PRO. “I don’t think it will be just one event that will change things.”

Desktop security IS on the agenda for companies that must adhere to regulatory requirements and for others that understand the key to preventing malware is to eliminate administrative privileges.

Secure Windows started with Vista

According to Microsoft’s Crispin Cowan, Vista Paved the Way for Secure Windows. He also notes that:

“If you are running as administrator, security is fairly hopeless," he said. Unfettered administrative rights is what allowed malware and viruses to take control of computers.

He continues:

Vista, featured a total separation between what a user can do on a machine and what an administrator can do, a separation that has always been enforced on Unix distributions. This separation, enforced by UAC, limits the damage that a user can do to a machine.

Google makes Chrome browser available as MSI file

While I still believe that Internet Explorer 8 is the right choice of browser for business use at the current time, Google has taken one step forward in making its popular Chrome browser enterprise friendly by making available an MSI installer package. Most importantly, unlike the consumer version, the MSI installs Chrome to the protected Program Files directory, making one installation of Chrome available to all users of the same system and easier to update when deployed across enterprise systems. Needless to say, an MSI file is also helpful when using Group Policy Software Installation or other enterprise-class deployment system. Download the Chrome MSI for enterprise deployment here.

You should note that at the time of writing, the MSI version of Chrome is a beta of version 6.

Book Review: Least Privilege Security for Windows 7,Vista and XP

Least Privilege Security for Windows 7,Vista and XP gets its first review here at Group Policy Center.

In quite a lot of chapters Russell goes into detail step by step instructions explain how to use the above technologies.  But what I really like is that he also takes the time to talk about how to approach the Cultural and Political challenges in implementing this security model as this is normally the hardest part achieving a secure environment.

The review continues:

I would definitely recommend this book as a reference to anyone in an organisation who is responsible for designing and/or making changes to their Windows environment.