As more businesses of all sizes give their employees Internet access, the chances of a computer virus finding its way to your network multiply. Not surprisingly, e-mail is the leading method of virus transmission. While most administrators are diligent about protecting their file servers and desktop clients, they often leave their Internet connections unprotected and hope the firewall will keep them safe from virus attacks. Unfortunately, firewalls care only about where a file came from, not what it contains, making them poorly equipped to cope with viruses. Fortunately, all of the vendors in this review offer protection for firewalls, proxy servers, and e-mail servers.
Different servers require different types of protection.
For example, HTTP is the carrier for ActiveX controls and Java applets, which could contain viruses that must be removed before they reach the browser. Finally, FTP is a perfect way to download applications that could be laced with a virus. Most of these products run on Windows NT, but some are also available for Sun Solaris. Norton AntiVirus for Firewalls and WebShield come free with the standard network suites. These Internet antivirus products are fairly easy to set up, but they require a little more effort than the LAN-based solutions reviewed in our main story.