Very nice summary.
I'd have to reiterate:
I'd enable virus checking on my firewall
if it was there free.
I've heard of cases where the CEO mailed
everyone in the company a copy of the Concept
Word Macro Virus... Firewall won't help with that.
I won't name company names... ahem.
Ryan
---------- Previous Message ----------
To: amotta
cc: firewalls
From: tkraft @ Misty.com (Todd Kraft) @ smtp
Date: 10/09/96 09:33:05 AM
Subject: Re: Virus on Internet
On Wed, 9 Oct 1996, Alejandro Motta wrote:
> Can someone tell me, if there are commercial firewalls, who can
> recognize and eliminate virus on internet, before entering in the
> private net ?
> I am doing an evaluation of commercial firewalls and I appreciate to
> have some information from you.
>
> Thanks
>
> Alex
>
A variety of products are reviewed at
http://www.pcweek.com/archive/1328/pcwk0041.htm.
As far back as 1994, the GreatCircle archives have rather heated
discussions about virus checking.
for example see:
http://www.netsys.com/firewalls/firewalls-9405/0163.html
http://netsys.com/firewalls/firewalls-9410/0248.html
I think the general concensus in this list is:
1. Filtering all of the viruses all of the time is impossible.
2. Filtering some of the viruses most of the time is possible.
3. Filtering some of the viruses most of the time is better than
filtering none of the viruses none of the time.
4. Encrypted data and self-extracting binaries complicates/confounds the
filtering process.
5. User education, desktop and NOS based virus checking are still
required, because many (the majority?) viruses come from floppies and
the filtering of network data is imperfect.
Other comments/opinions/experiences?
-Todd
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