RE: Do we still need scheduled scan?

You can configure scheduled scans for performance: most packages will
allow you to catalogue all of the files on a drive and cache a checksum.
This makes for very quick scanning in that the scanner only has to pass
a file once if the checksum has not changed.  Different packages use
different names for this: inoculating, immunizing, all the same thing.

Typically during a thorough scan a file is passed multiple times looking
for different things, using a checksum will verify that the file as not
changed rather than depending on an unreliable archive bit.

You can also schedule the scans for off-hours, and don't scan all files,
only scan those that could possibly execute.  It sounds like a good idea
to scan every file, but, why would you want to scan things like TXT
files or proprietary file formats that do not execute?  It's kind of
like hunting for elephants at the North Pole.

Another great time saver is to have your users clean up their Internet
cache and dump all the unnecessary off-line content and cookies, that
could save you from scanning thousands of files per machine and shave
considerable time off the job.

These are pretty basic configuration parameters and forgive me if it
sounds like talking down to you.  With my years on the support side of
things I learned that no matter how accomplished the tech is on the
other end of the line, you still ask them if the computer is plugged in
to a live circuit when they report a system won't power up.  (You'd be
surprised at the number of engineers I've caught on this one:)

Bruce Shaffer, CISSP

-----Original Message-----
From: Robert Sandilands [mailto:[email protected]] 
Sent: Thursday, December 29, 2005 12:14 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Do we still need scheduled scan?

Hi Cathy,

Real-time scanners should catch all malware that can directly affect 
you. But it may decide not to scan that 500 MB zip file for performance 
reasons. That file may contain a virus and a scheduled scan will detect 
that. But there is no direct way you can be affected by that virus 
without extracting the file, at which time the real-time scanner will 
protect you.

Robert Sandilands

Sewell, Cathy wrote:

>>From discussions with the anti-virus vendors during various crises
over the years, I've learned that the real-time scans are optimized for
speed, while the scheduled scans are focused on thoroughness.  This
means, disturbingly, that malware can elude the real-time scan, yet be
caught by the more-thorough scheduled scan.  Hence the anti-virus
vendors continued recommendations to run weekly scheduled local scans on
all computers.
>
>- CSewell
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Doug Fox [mailto:[email protected]] 
>Sent: Wednesday, December 28, 2005 2:28 PM
>To: [email protected]
>Subject: Do we still need scheduled scan?
>
>If we have already implemented virus scan at the gateway, on the mail 
>server, on individual servers, and real time scan on
workstations/laptops, 
>do we still need scheduled, e.g., weekly, scan on workstations and
laptops 
>as well as servers?
>
>Schdeuled scans really slow down some machines.
>
>Any comments are appreciated.
>
>Thanks,
>
>Doug
> 
>  
>


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