Bake-Off: Desktop Security Suites

Despite all the attention being paid to unified threat management systems, secure gateways and mail security, desktop security remains one of the most critical applications for today's PCs. Despite the best efforts of the IT department, individual systems need to be protected from malware such as worms, Trojans, viruses, keyloggers, phish attacks, spam, pharming, zombies, spyware and adware (to name a few). While everyone knows the basics—installing and regularly updating security suite and enabling a personal firewall—very few people stop to consider whether these tools are really effective in protecting against the many different types of threats.

The wide variety of channel-friendly vendors can make the selection process simple and difficult at the same time. For this month's Bake-Off on desktop security suites, the CRN Test Center looked at security suites from Symantec Corp., Cupertino, Calif; Moscow-based Kaspersky Labs; CA, Islandia, N.Y.; McAfee, Santa Clara, Calif.; and Trend Micro, Cupertino, Calif.

McAfee Internet Security Center
The McAfee Internet Security Center has an easy-to-use interface. Split into frames, the left window houses a menu list of available sections, while the right displays information and option settings related to the selected action. Notable features include the capability to manage the network, with a diagram of how the network is mapped out. A lockdown feature blocks all traffic immediately with the click of a single button.

Besides doing virus scans and monitoring the Internet traffic, the Security Center has a QuickClean function that allows the user to delete any or all temporary files such as cookies and the cache. Although this can be done in almost every browser, McAfee's implementation is much more comprehensive. In addition, obsolete files can be shredded to make sure that they are permanently deleted.

During testing, McAfee did very well in protecting our system. It immediately detected and blocked all the rogue Web sites we attempted to visit except for one. Two of the sites were blocked with a pop-up above the system tray explaining which infection it was blocking. Another brought up a warning that the site was listed in McAfee's online SiteAdvisor database as a reported repository for viruses and scripts.

Although not perfect, the Security Center did allow us to browse to one site that runs a malicious script when visited. This made reviewers a little more disconcerted when the same site was visited using FireFox3, which immediately brought up a warning that the site was reported in Mozilla's database as being unsafe. Manually using McAfee's SiteAdvisor to check the site, the application reported back with a green check mark stating it was tested and no significant problems were found.

Overall, McAfee's security solution is fairly robust. For the most part, the installation is automatic and the default settings do a good job of protecting the system when it is on. It was able to catch and block unsafe Web sites that some of its competitors couldn't, but there's still room for improvement.

Next: Norton Internet Security 2009 (Beta)