Desktop Security Suites for Small Businesses
Most small business computer problems happen right at the desktop, on individual machines, rather than in the network or on the server. Most of these problems are the result of a virus, popup, spam, or harmful programs that have been able to access the computer and install themselves. Many small business owners use antivirus software but are frustrated by continual problems, the expense of undoing the results of a virus or a malicious program, and not knowing if information is being sent to the Internet surreptitiously. Unfortunately, antivirus software only solves part of the problem. A much better solution is to use one of the more comprehensive desktop security suites on the market today. These suites are a cost-effective, first line of defense for any business, and for small business, often the only cost-effective option.
Desktop security suites were developed to help keep the computers up and working, to keep company information from going out to the Internet where it can be improperly used for marketing, spam, or identity theft, and to protect the company from liability resulting from sending customer data inappropriately, or having internal systems used to attack other businesses.
Most small business owners are familiar with antivirus software, and a few years ago this simple step was enough. Unfortunately, there are many more risks today from being connected to the Internet. Simple antivirus software solutions have grown to include four components that make up a Desktop Security Suite: antivirus, antispam, antispyware, and a desktop firewall.
Comprehensive Security Suite Solutions
To best protect your computers, it is important to provide comprehensive protection at each, individual desktop within the organization. While many problems can be solved at your network firewall, or can be filtered by your internet service provider, network-wide solutions can be expensive. Additionally, the difficulty with gateway (or external) solutions is that once a virus gets past your gateway’s firewall, it will have free access to all of the other machines on your network. It will be difficult at that point to prevent the problem from spreading to all of your computers and each machine would need to be cleaned of virus or spyware. A better solution is to install software on each desktop to prevent problems from replicating within your network. For a small office (fewer than 10 computers), it is often much cheaper to stop viruses, spam and spyware at the desktop rather than at the Internet connection.
Antivirus protection is a key component of computer security. There are many viruses today, as well as worms and trojans. A virus will modify an existing program or file. A worm is a new program or file that self-replicates, and a trojan is a malicious program that hides as a part of something else you might install; all things you do not want on your computer. It is unlikely that these threats will ever end, so you will need current protection against all three.
To keep your network safe, antispam protection is also needed. Most computer security threats enter organizations through email. Spam emailers often try to trick users into following web links, launching programs, replying with information, or simply opening the email so that the desktop can be compromised. An additional problem for employers is that a lack of effort to combat spam can be interpreted as permitting offensive material to be presented to your employees. Filtering spam at the server or firewall is a good first step, but what constitutes spam is often subjective, and filters that can be adjusted on an individual basis at the desktop by the user are much more accurate. Antispam protection is as important as antivirus protection.
Antispyware protection is another part of the solution. Spyware, or malware (malicious software), are programs that you do not want running within your systems, but do not spread themselves like viruses do. Many of these programs appear innocuous or like something you might want, such as an enhanced screen saver or an Internet search bar; others are invisible. Professional criminal organizations write spyware for two primary reasons: the first is to steal your data, including credit cards, health information, email contacts or anything else they can sell or abuse; and the second is to control your computer for large scale attacks against other companies. No business can afford to have its system sending out spam, especially to the people on your contact or customer lists.
The final part of a Desktop Security Suite is a desktop firewall. Desktop firewalls do two important things. First, they block unauthorized external systems from connecting to your desktop and second, they prevent your desktop from connecting to any unauthorized external system. More specifically, a desktop firewall is application aware meaning that it knows which programs should be allowed to connect to the internet and permit the transfer of information back and forth and which should not. Built-in Windows firewalls do not have the ability to prevent outgoing connections, so they cannot be considered an adequate desktop firewall.
Evaluating a Desktop Security Suite
Some issues to consider before choosing a Desktop Security Suite are cost, ease of set up and maintenance, and how the Desktop Security Suite will affect the performance of your computers. The average Desktop Security Suite costs about $60 per desktop, per year, with the renewal cost to maintain the updates after the first year at about half of the initial cost. If you are on a tight budget, it might be tempting to employ free individual components, but the extra time needed to maintain and support the free components is often not worth the money saved. It is less expensive in the long run to use a dedicated Desktop Security Suite with components that are designed to work together.
Performance can be an issue with Desktop Security Suites because they can slow computers down a little bit while examining data to make sure it is safe. Some desktop security suites spend more time examining than others, so performance should be balanced against the level of security it is providing.
The cost of a Desktop Security Suite should include the amount of time needed to set it up, update it and maintain it. Antivirus, and antispyware can be configured to update themselves automatically as can antispam and firewalls once they are given good initial definitions. We can help you determine what should or should not be allowed to be viewed or downloaded and then set the rules for the firewall to follow your policy. If you have more than 10 computers in your office, you might want to consider centralized management of the updates and maintenance. In this situation it may be simpler and take less time than maintaining individual machines. Fortunately, centralized security suite management does not cost more, it just takes a little more expertise to set up initially.
There are numerous providers of Desktop Security Suites and it is important to choose the complete suite that is right for your business because the components of these suites are designed to work together within the suite and not with components from other suites. The major providers of dedicated Desktop Security Suites are Norton, McAfee, Symantec, ZoneAlarm, Trend Micro, Computer Associates, Kaspersky and many others.
Conclusion
J.P. Schwartz, Inc. can help you choose the security suite with the right balance of cost, ease-of-use, and performance to meet the needs of your organization because we have experience with many different Desktop Security Suite solutions. We can help inventory your systems, and determine if you qualify for cost-effective upgrade packages. We can also help make sure the system is properly installed and configured, ensuring that interruption of your employees’ work is minimized. We can also help you establish a schedule for consistent, constant protection and updates, train your office staff to recognize when there is trouble, and make sure that the Security Suite configuration allows your computers to perform to their full potential.
If you are ready to take the steps necessary to protect your computers and their vital information from unwanted intrusions, hackers or attacks, give the Desktop Security Suite experts at J.P. Schwartz a call today at (303) 482-1242 or contact us by e-mail at info@jpschwartz.com. Our offices are located in the Boulder Colorado and Denver Colorado metropolitan areas, but we consult for companies nationwide.
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