VFS Virus Scanner idea...

[Rainer Link]

On Thu, Sep 12, 2002 at 04:47:58PM -0400, bdavids1 at gmu.edu wrote:

> Point #2 - Server side anti-virus is a good thing, but is not a 
> substitute for client side anti-virus.  Don't think for a moment that 
> you're safe from viruses because your server is running AV software.

I'm a friend of the client-server based virus protection approach,
that's one of the main reasons why I wrote samba-vscan (which I actually 
don't need on my own, as I don't have any windows clients at all). And,
uhm, virus scanning has never a detection rate of 100%.  

> Point #3 - In some ways I think server side anti-virus is pointless.  
> It does prevent the sharing of viruses through the server, which is 
> where it *is* useful.  At the same time, if the goal is to prevent 
> viruses from wiping out the data you have on your servers, server side 
> AV doesn't protect you.  Any connected workstation can get infected 
> with a virus that deletes every server based file it has authorization 
> to delete.  Thus the server side AV only gives the illusion of 
> protection.

Hum, client-based av software won't help here in all cases (think of a
new virus). One big part of anti-virus strateg must be backups :) [which
does not mean backups are only needed because of viruses - data loss
because of hardware failure or by mistake are much more frequent].
Another important part is user education, but this is beyond the scope
of this mailing list.

best regards,
Rainer Link