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Microsoft last week rolled out a subscription-based, Windows-centric, anti- malware tool called Forefront Client Security. The company touts FCS as a significant upgrade from its freely available Windows Defender program mainly due to an accompanying centralized management console.
In our test of the newly minted FCS code, we found it is an easy-to-administer desktop-based antimalware tool with helpful reports and painless deployment.The FCS Security Agent software stymied Spyware and other loopy miscreants at an industry average rate in our tests (see "How we did ifat www.nwdocfinder.com/8557).
However, FCS as a desktop malware tool is not as effective as a gateway-based tool, mobile users have to return to the office to acquire administrative changes, and it doesn't have the sort of selective blocking capabilities offered with newer versions of competitive products.
Additionally, the FCS Security Agent code does not thwart spam or phishing attempts; their detection is handled at the gateway level with the company's ForeFront security addon to Exchange 2007. (See the most recent test at www. nwdocfinder.com/8558.)
The client-side FCS Security Agent runs as a background service on Windows 2000, XR Server 2003 and Vista. Daily or on a schedule we established using the console, each agent scanned its computer in either quick (checking only running processes, registry, start menu and operating system directories) or full (checking running processes, registry start menu and all directories) fashion.
FCS checked e-mail attachments when we opened them but didn't scan incoming e-mail streams for malware.
The daily scans are a supplement to FCS' real-time examination of incoming EXE, DLL, OCX and other executable files as it hunts for Spyware. When...