How to select antivirus protection for your business?

Knowing the variety of solutions offered and their main characteristics will assist you in making the right choice when selecting antivirus protection for your business. Main questions to ask yourself are:

1. Are you well aware of your needs?

Prior to selecting an antivirus, you should identify your business needs. For instance:

• What hardware do you have to defend?
• Are you operating on Microsoft Windows or Apple MacBooks, or both? The majority of antivirus programs are compatible with Windows—if using Apple MacBooks or Linux-based operating systems, you’ll need to see if the vendor supports these.
• If your organization issues smartphones and tablets to employees, you’ll want to use a solution also compatible with Android and iOS.
• Are all your devices located in one place or scattered in various places? Do you have to control all of them from a central point? How are the sites networked together?
• The responses to these questions will help decide which antivirus software will suit you best.

2. How simple is it to install?

A strong solution will offer protection straight out of the box, whereas weaker solutions can take weeks to install, during which time your devices are unprotected.

You can still update the policies yourself afterwards, but having policies pre-configured at installation allows the software to function from the very beginning. It also holds true when you must add a new device—for instance, when provisioning new employee devices.

It’s important that new team members, who are particularly vulnerable to exploits because they may be unfamiliar with the new system, are protected immediately. You also need to be able to remotely deploy the software to any device your employee will use to access the company network, which may include their personal devices.

3. How easy is it to manage?

Most antivirus software is cloud-based. Having a cloud-native architecture implies most of the workload of analysis and software management resides on a cloud environment.

This reduces the amount of space the software occupies on the system, as well as its impact on system performance. It will also usually have a remotely accessible control panel so that administrators can obtain an overall view of what is happening, and access settings, updates, and verification tools from a single location.

Administrators can then monitor threats on all protected systems, wherever they may be.

4. Are there automatic updates?

Automatic updates are a must—antivirus is supposed to be a background app with minimal disruption to the user, and incessant update requests defeat that objective.

5. Is after-sales support available?

Who maintains the software after it’s rolled out? Is support part of the cost? If you don’t have an internal or contracted IT staff, you might have to call the vendor’s support department to handle custom policy settings or resolve problems.

False positives could be a problem. See if there is after-sales support offered, how extensive, and how much it costs.

6. How good is its threat protection?

You require a solution that guards you against new and unknown threats, in addition to known threats. Many cloud-based solutions provide this by employing machine learning technologies to crowdsource their threat intelligence.

When a threat is discovered on one system that is not known, all the other systems under the protection of that solution are alerted against it.

A quality antivirus software solution must provide multilayered protection against sophisticated threats at the three primary endpoint layers: file, network, and application. This protects against all potential entry vectors that cybercriminals may decide to take.

7. Is it compatible with various devices?

Mobile devices and laptops are often considered the most vulnerable entry points into the corporate network because it can be more difficult to manage updates on these devices, especially if users are working on their own personal devices. For this reason, it’s important that your antivirus software has mobile device management (MDM) capabilities and is compatible with different operating systems.

A great solution will provide encryption, logging, and remote device wiping. Some solutions even provide an app-based VPN for mobile devices, minimizing users’ digital footprint and safeguarding their web-based communications.

8. Is there third-party patch management?

A patch is a modification or group of modifications to a computer program or application intended to fix vulnerabilities in the program. Patch management is the process of downloading, testing, and applying patches to keep systems current and always utilizing the correct, working patches.

Effective antivirus software does all this automatically, keeping third-party software up-to-date and secured. Hackers typically attack out-of-date software, so vulnerabilities must be closed as soon as possible.

9. How effective is the antivirus?

Because most modern antivirus programs are cloud-based, they tend not to take up much system resources. That’s not always true, though. You want to use a light antivirus that is updated regularly and not sucking up your device’s resources so it slows down.

If the product you’re about to choose is reported to slow down computers, check if you can schedule when the software performs scans.

Scanning is what slows down a system; if you can get them to use up working hours, they will not slow you down from working effectively.

10. Are there any additional features?

For instance, the vast majority of malware comes via email, so there needs to be included systems within that can recognize phishing attacks and other forms of risk. It is a good idea to look for a product that will scan USB devices for problems when plugged into PCs and laptops, and it is also a good idea to look at checking the registry to prevent rootkit problems.

Business antivirus software can also cover communication and instant messaging software, which is helpful if you employ video conferencing software.

11. How much does it cost?

Cost is a key deciding factor for most businesses. When you search for antivirus software for your business, ask yourself the following questions to compare them on an equal footing:

• How much is the overall cost? Are there annual subscription payments or fees you’ll have to pay to make sure you have the protection you require?
• Are licenses for servers distinct from those for PCs?
• Do you gain by buying several years at once?
• Do you have a buyback arrangement for pre-owned software?
• Is there any maintenance or support fee?

Asking yourself these questions will enable you to make a knowledgeable choice as to which antivirus software is most suitable for your business. And after you’ve bought and installed it, you can be sure that your business is safeguarded against a variety of threats online.