This article is the 3rd in a series that were written by Che Johnson (Avast Software Technical Support) and J.R. Guthrie (avast Sales and Support Specialist from Advantage Micro Corporation). We spent over a year writing this series of “Managing avast Endpoint Protection” documents to make installations easier. These URLs are for avast! Endpoint Protection Suite Plus using the avast Enterprise Administrator console. avast! Enterprise Administration console (AEA) The AEA console is required when managing 200+ systems. This Enterprise console is the most powerful anti-virus management tool in the industry. For those of you that have previously used ADNM (previous version 4 of the Enterprise console with blue...
Antivirus
Managing avast Endpoint Protection Suite Plus using the Small Office Administration console (SOA)
This article is the 2nd in a series that were written by Che Johnson (Avast Software Technical Support) and J.R. Guthrie (avast Sales and Support Specialist from Advantage Micro Corporation). We spent over a year writing this series of “Managing avast Endpoint Protection” documents to make installations easier. These URLs are for avast! Endpoint Protection Suite Plus using the Small Office Administrator console: avast! Small Office Administration console (SOA) NOTE: The SOA console does NOT have to be installed on the server, and does not use conventional SQL (it uses an embedded SQL lite). Ours is running on a XP SP3 box (very light). You may...
Managing avast Endpoint Protection Suite using the Small Office Administration console (SOA)
Che Johnson (Avast Software Technical Support) and J.R. Guthrie (avast Sales and Support Specialist from Advantage Micro Corporation) spent over a year writing this series of “Managing avast Endpoint Protection” documents to make installations easier. These URLs are for avast! Endpoint Protection Suite using the Small Office Administrator console: avast! Small Office Administration console (SOA) NOTE: The SOA console does NOT have to be installed on the server, and does not use conventional SQL (it uses an embedded SQL lite). Ours is running on a XP SP3 box (very light). You may push a deployment from the console for a domain. Workgroups will not deploy,...
How to do a clean install of avast Pro using the avast removal tool!
This REMOVAL process is specific to avast! 7 (or 8) upgrading over an avast! 4, 5, 6 or an avast! 7 installation (also use when upgrading avast! Free to avast! Pro or avast! Endpoint Protection) You will want to have your avast license file available for insertion during step nine (license.avastlic) 1) Remove all avast! versions as well as any other A/V programs from add/remove programs in control panel. 2) Download the latest version of avast! Uninstall Utility (aswclear.exe) and save it on your desktop. http://files.avast.com/files/eng/aswclear.exe 3) Start Windows in Safe Mode (F8 key before Windows splash screen on...
How to properly use the avast! AntiSpam Filter for Outlook
avast! AntiSpam Filter for Outlook When you open Outlook, you will see the avast! AntiSpam toolbar. You will be able to train the avast! AntiSpam toolbar for your exact needs, to save time and effort. There are basically only 3 different types of email, and each has a unique way to be correctly dealt with. 1) SPAM (unsolicited email, you did not sign up, you never heard of them) 2) SOLICITED (you signed up for it, and you are now on a mailing list, whether you like it or not) 3) CORPORATE (the email you use to communicate with employees...
Do I need antivirus on my iPad?
There are two sides to the iPad anti-virus issue, so let me explain both sides, with cases. Apple iPad devices are fairly well protected. There is not too much to worry about as long as your iPad is not “jail broken” and crashing. The Operating System, called the iOS, is a “closed system.” Unauthorized applications or viruses only have a limited amount of interaction with the iOS. While this reduces the need for an iPad anti-virus/anti-spyware software, it doesn’t totally eliminate it. All operating systems contain vulnerabilities. It is quite possible (almost a guarantee) for a security exploit to...
antivirus testing vs real world occurrences: How can you test what you can’t see?
AV Comparatives March 2012 used 300,000 known samples. Here testing relied mostly on definitions detection (DAT). When using known samples, “Brute Force” definition detection is very effective and nets you excellent ratings, with the average at 96% for the top 15 AV vendors. However, this type of testing does NOT mimic real world occurrences. Polymorphic code is the real problem. All Polymorphic code is unknown, rare, and cannot be analyzed by DAT detection until execution. http://www.av-comparatives.org/images/stories/test/ondret/avc_fd_mar2012_intl_en.pdf AV Comparatives of August 2011 testing is based on static detection of new/unknown malicious software. The average here was just under 60% for...
avast 7 downgrade to avast 6 issues and solutions
avast 7 has released as of February 23rd. It is new and there are many issues being posted daily on the avast forum in many threads. There are also many avast! 7 users that have no issues. However, the business community is NOT ready to deal with these issues, we just want our computers to work. So, staying with avast! 6 for a little while makes since, and let the product get some more debugging. This way you not introduce any undesired results from this upgrade. avast! 6 took about 2 months to be ready for commercial users. Also,...
How to clean an Infected Computer using “SCRAPE”
1)If you have been using avast!, this is most likely NOT a virus infection, but a spyware infection! The best antivirus programs in the world stop approximately 95% of virus’, and 70% of spyware. We have been relying on Microsoft Windows Defender for years now, but that program has become worthless, and all it does is slow your machine down. We actually remove Defender from all of our systems. We have found that some users will be re-infected until properly protected. The best protection that money can buy is avast! Pro and Malwarebytes Pro combined. Over 95% of systems,...
When all else fails, discovery and removal of antivirus leftovers!
edited 05-23-12 by J.R. Guthrie Antivirus software is the most invasive application we will ever install on our systems. Even when the products are properly removed by “Add/Remove Programs”, pieces of code are ALWAYS left behind, and these leftovers can and do conflict with the current antivirus products installed in your system. This situation has occurred throughout my entire career, and is effected by most antivirus vendors (Symantec, Norton, and McAfee just to tag a few.) These symptoms range from no Internet access, system errors, revolving “boot looping”, and the dreaded Microsoft BSOD (blue screen of death) Windows...
Risks of Online Banking as a Business Exposed
The banking laws/regulations have changed and are continuing to change. Federal banking regulations provide broad protections to consumers (personal bank accounts are liable for only $50 from online fraud). But consumers who are unaware of their rights might end up unnecessarily footing the bill. Banks are no longer required to carry insurance on business/corporate bank accounts, and they have not been informing their business customers of the change. This means if your business does any type of online banking, bill payment, online statements (which we all are being pushed to); you will most likely need to sue the bank...
Business Protect clients are ignoring URL site blockings when deployed by the SBC.
We found avast! Business Protection clients are ignoring URL site blockings when deployed by the SBC. Here’s how I solved this issue! Thanks to this post by Yanto.Chiang: http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=82234.msg671729#msg671729 “Dear All, Ok, finally we successfully found how to set URL blocking with SBC. 1. SBC >> Network >> Group View >> Choose the group that administrator would like to set a different policies (click Edit Group Settings) 2. Go to Expert Settings and clicked >> Then you can choose avastcfg://WebShield//WebScanner/BlockedURLs (define the site that administrator would like to blocked and use semicolon as separator 3. To enabled Site Blocking...
avast Pro 6 conversion from avast! Pro 4 (and stopping avast 7 auto installation)
During an avast program update, many time a new version will go over the top of a previous version. And other times this type of upgrade will cause “undesirable results” This process is designed to overcome those issues. The newest version of avast 7 is still quite new and somewhat buggy, so we prefer to stay at avast version 6 for the moment. 1) Download avast! 6 Pro here and save to desktop (must be the 1367 version, or you will get avast! 7 anyways) 2) Save the new avast! license file on the desktop: “license.avastlic” 3) You...
SSL / TLS and the avast! Mail Shield
In order for e-mails to be scanned by the avast! Mail Shield, it is necessary that encryption is turned off in the mail client software. If encryption is required, the appropriate e-mail accounts need to be configured in the Mail Shield to establish a secure connection with the mail server. This will enable all incoming and outgoing e-mails to be scanned by the Mail Shield. All other e-mail accounts using unencrypted connections should be listed as unencrypted in the SSL Accounts settings of the Mail Shield (i.e. SSL/TLS encryption set to ‘None’, ports for SMTP to ’25′, for POP3...
Discovery and removal of previously installed antivirus leftovers! including avast’s special tool
Here is an Article I wrote about discovery and removal of leftovers from previous anti-virus products, my “when all else fails” procedure Antivirus software is the most invasive application we will ever use on our systems. Specifically here, we are addressing the upgrade of avast! 4.8 to newer avast! Pro or Business Protection. However, this situation also occurs with other antivirus vendors (Symantec, Norton, and McAfee just to tag a few.) What has really occurred here, is that there are left over pieces of previous antivirus software, and they are conflicting with the current antivirus software. And the classic symptom is...
