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List:       firewalls-gc
Subject:    Re: Virus Scanner
From:       Sean Elrington <seane () intergate ! bc ! ca>
Date:       1997-07-28 15:45:55
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This thread is drifting ever further away from firewalls but while we
are talking about gateway anti-virus you should check Trend Micro
(http://www.antivirus.com) since they patented their scanning engine and
have started to sue some of their competitors for infringement.

I know Raptor made an announcement over a year ago about working with
Trend to develop gateway based anti-virus but nothing ever seemed to
come from it.

I'm not sure that anti-virus on a firewall makes much sense (as opposed
to gateway anti-virus generally which is a great idea but not a
replacement for desktop protection).

The problems are:
1. latency. the firewall is a busy box to begin with and the cycles have
to come from somewhere
2. adminstration. running an application on your firewall may involve
allowing more people to administer the box
3. security. call me paranoid, but of all the boxes on the network which
could be used to corral exotic viruses and hold them for inspection, the
firewall is not the one I would pick.

--
Sean Elrington
Sales Systems Engineer
Choreo Systems - Vancouver
Te: (604) 737-3993  www.choreosystems.com   seane@choreo.ca
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TCP/IP, X.11, NFS
Messaging and directory software
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