While some security providers offer a one-size-fits-all product, Bitdefender Ultimate Small Business Security is specifically aimed at – well, the clue's in the name. The cheapest plan covers just three users, using up to six devices and email addresses, plus one Windows server, for £148 exc VAT per year. Other options allow you to protect five, ten or a maximum of 25 users, plus additional personal devices and servers, at prices ranging up to £625 exc VAT a year. 

Larger businesses should look instead at Bitdefender also offers its Gravityzone Business Security platform, which can scale to any size – but there's a definite appeal to a security system that's designed specifically for small operations, working with limited budgets and minimal in-house expertise.

Bitdefender Ultimate Small Business Security review: Setup and features

Bitdefender Ultimate Security for Small Businesses is very easy to activate and roll out. Once you've registered your license in the web-based Bitdefender Central dashboard, you can either download the software yourself or email links to your staff, who can install and use the client software just like a standalone security suite. The client software supports both Windows and macOS; iPhones and Android devices can also be protected using the Bitdefender mobile apps, available from their respective app stores.

For Windows users, the desktop app is a fully featured edition of Bitdefender Total Security, while Mac users get the slightly more lightweight Bitdefender Antivirus suite. Both include active malware scanning, protection against malicious downloads and websites, and ransomware protection that blocks unauthorized access to your personal folders. The Windows suite also features a custom firewall, a system vulnerability scanner, a secure browser, crypto mining detection, a one-click system optimizer, an anti-theft location tracker, and Bitdefender's own-brand password manager.

What it doesn't have is much in the way of remote manageability. Although you can apply a password to stop users from adjusting their own protection settings, this has to be done locally – you can't set it from the administrative dashboard. On the plus side, any devices with disabled protection features are flagged in the web dashboard as "At risk", and you can remotely re-enable those functions at the click of a button, as well as triggering scans for malware and vulnerabilities. 

If you don't want to handle that yourself, you can also nominate a single security administrator for your site, who can also review devices and customize features. It's a simple model to work with, and flexible enough for the smaller businesses the package is aimed at.

Alongside the main security app, Bitdefender automatically installs its VPN client. Using this can help reduce the risks of insecure internet gateways, but your exit point has to be one of Bitdefender's own global servers; if you want a private, encrypted connection for remote workers to connect directly to the company network, you'll need a separate solution for that.

Another noteworthy feature is the "scam copilot", which is integrated into the Bitdefender mobile app. If users receive a suspicious-looking message, they can paste text, an image, or a link into the advisor, and get an instant AI-powered opinion as to whether or not it's legitimate. Although the process isn't wholly automatic, it's a nice element of reassurance.

The final two major features are basically two sides of the same coin. The Digital Identity Protection and Business Assets Exposure modules both monitor online data breaches and leaks and alert you if personal or company information has been compromised. 

This is a good angle for security: leaked credentials can open the door to all sorts of attacks, and it's nice that the business module monitors credit cards and social media access as well as internal assets. However, it can only monitor the email addresses of your registered users, along with one generic business address; we'd have welcomed a more wide-ranging approach that could alert you to anything related to your company domain.

Bitdefender Ultimate Small Business Security review: Virus protection

In March and April 2024, independent experts at AV-Comparatives.org included the Bitdefender Total Security suite and Bitdefender's high-end GravityZone Business Security Premium package in their real-world malware tests. 

In both cases, Bitdefender's software proved highly effective at blocking threats. Total Security achieved an excellent 99.92% protection score, and placed in the top group for false alarms, while Bitdefender's business offering did even better, with a perfect 100% protection rate.

Testers at AV-Test.org reported similar findings. They awarded Bitdefender Total Security a flawless 100% protection score in AV-Test's most recent home security report – and Bitdefender Endpoint Security matched this with an impeccable performance in the lab's most recent round-up of business security products.

Bitdefender Ultimate Small Business Security review: Is it worth it? 

Bitdefender Ultimate Small Business Security provides effective protection against a wide range of threats. The Windows software is particularly well-featured, but all desktop users are well-defended against classic malware, malicious websites, phishing emails, scam chats, and more, with minimal deployment and management overheads.

We do have some caveats. The proliferation of features could distract or confuse users, and as your company expands, the basic management facilities could become a frustration. Indeed, the 25-seat limit ensures that this package won't grow with you beyond a certain point.

Still, for small offices on tight budgets, Bitdefender Ultimate Small Business Security is well worth considering. You really can set up and run the system without requiring a dedicated IT resource, and the price compares well to other SMB security solutions – especially when you remember that the license covers two devices per user, plus protection for on-site servers.

Eset Protect is a versatile business-oriented security suite. It's offered in three standard variants, dubbed Entry, Advanced, and Complete; unusually, there's also a pick-and-mix aspect, allowing you to add individual features from the Complete package to a cheaper-tier subscription.

While it's nice that you can get the features you need without having to pay for ones you don't, the package itself is still priced toward the upper end of the SMB security market. A basic one-year subscription to Eset Protect Entry starts at £155.50 exc VAT for five devices, while the Advanced and Complete packages cost £202.50 and £249 respectively. There's a modest discount of around 11% for a two-year subscription, though, and larger companies can take advantage of additional breaks for higher seat counts. 

There's also an interesting option called Eset Protect MDR, which uses remote human agents and AI sensors to monitor your systems in real-time, for the fastest possible response to threats: for pricing on that, you'll need to contact Eset and discuss your specific needs. If you want to try out the software and work out which features could be useful to you, Eset offers free 30-day trials of the three main packages for up to 20 devices.

Eset Protect antivirus: Setup and features

Like most professional security solutions, Eset Protect is managed from a web dashboard. The first time you visit this you'll be prompted to create an Eset Business Account, enter your license key, and select the region where you want your cloud data to be stored.

You can now immediately start rolling out the endpoint software. The installer can be downloaded directly from the dashboard, or pushed out to Windows machines via group policy – or, you can email out links for users to initiate the installation themselves. There are also client packages for macOS and Linux, which can be installed manually or via supplied scripts, and mobile apps for Android and iOS that can be downloaded from their respective app stores.

A nice touch is that some client features can be enabled or disabled at the point of installation, such as live threat detection, detection of potentially unwanted programs, and full-disk encryption. Clients will also automatically pick up global settings from the dashboard; for example, you can set an organization-wide password for client-side access to security options, and configure all devices to automatically resolve detected security issues if they're not addressed within a certain time limit.

For more fine-grained control, customizable policies allow you to set or lock almost every aspect of the client software. Predefined templates are provided to match the feature sets of each of the various supported platforms, and policies can be assigned to individual devices, groups, or dynamic categories – such as all mobile devices, devices with outdated software, devices reporting problems, and so forth. 

While the Eset management system is very powerful, it can get complicated. Indeed, the web interface as a whole feels a little overwhelming, with ten tabs across the top of the main dashboard view and ten links down the left-hand side that open additional multi-pane views – not to mention a second slide-over pane of options for additional information about detections, users, and licenses. We tested the Eset Protect Advanced package, but Protect Complete has even more features to browse, including patch management, integration with Exchange and IBM email servers, and protection for Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 apps.

The client software is a bit easier to get around. It's evidently built on Eset's consumer security suite and offers the same broad feature set. Users can initiate or watch their own system scans, and – if permitted – explore and extensively configure a huge range of behaviors and protections, covering network intrusions, web protection, email scanning, and more.

The suite also includes a secure browser, to protect sensitive activity from snoopers, and Eset's handy Running processes view, which shows all active programs along with reputation and popularity ratings, to help support agents spot suspicious items at a glance. 

The client app can even be configured (either locally or remotely) to enforce category-based and list-based web filtering. The only thing that's notably missing is folder protection; rather than looking for suspicious file activity, Eset uses cloud-supported sandboxing to identify and block ransomware before it gets anywhere near your protected folders.

Eset Protect antivirus: Virus protection

Eset Protect delivers effective, accurate malware protection. In the most recent AV-Test.org roundup of business security products, Eset achieved a near-perfect protection rate of 99.1% against zero-day malware attacks during March 2024, rising to a perfect 100% in April. The software also achieved a flawless score for the detection of widespread threats, with zero false positives.

AV-Comparatives.org's latest test of business antivirus solutions tells much the same story. Again, Eset Protect Advanced placed near the top of the table with an overall protection rating of 99.6%, while not registering a single false alarm.

These aren't quite the best scores we've seen; in the same tests, Avast Business Security impressively scored 100% across the board. But malware is a moving target, and Eset's performance has been consistently strong for many years: you can be confident in its ability to keep your business safe.

Eset Protect antivirus: Is it worth it? 

Eset Protect might not be right for everyone. Small offices with tight budgets and limited manpower may prefer the cheaper licensing and simpler management of Avast Business Security.

For those who want more, though, Eset Protect is a fine choice. Flexible licensing lets you pay for and use the features you need, and not only does it work on every major operating system, it offers extensive installation and management options tailored to each platform.

Perhaps most importantly, Eset Protect can be relied on to keep you safe from even previously unseen dangers. As independent experts confirm, its multi-layered protection does an impressive job of detecting and neutralizing threats of all types and from all directions.

Cisco has issued a patch for a critical vulnerability discovered in its ClamAV open source antivirus software.

Tracked as CVE-2023-20032, Cisco said the flaw could enable remote code execution on vulnerable devices and was given a ‘critical’ CVSSv3 rating of 9.8.

The issue was found to affect versions 1.0.0 and earlier, 0.105.1 and earlier, and 0.103.7.

In an advisory posted on 15 February, Cisco said the flaw affected the ClamAV HFS+ file parser, and could enable an “unauthenticated, remote attacker to execute arbitrary code” with the same privileges of ClamAV’s scanning process.

The firm added that the vulnerability could also crash this process, resulting in a denial of service (DoS) condition.

“This vulnerability is due to a missing buffer size check that may result in a heap buffer overflow write,” the company said. “An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by submitting a crafted HFS+ partition file to be scanned by ClamAV on an affected device.”

Vulnerable products

Cisco confirmed that several products could be at risk due to the vulnerability. This includes Secure Endpoint, formerly known as Advanced Malware Protection (AMP), for endpoints.

Users on Windows, macOS, and Linux are all affected.

Cisco’s Secure Endpoint Private cloud and Secure Web Appliance, formerly Web Security Appliance, are also affected.

The company emphasised that the vulnerability does not affect other key products, such as its Secure Email Gateway and Secure Email and Web Manager.

At present, there is no indication that the flaw has been actively exploited in the wild. However, Cisco urged users to patch immediately to mitigate risk.

“The Cisco Product Security Incident Response Team (PSIRT) is not aware of any public announcements or malicious use of the vulnerability that is described in this advisory,” the firm said.

What is ClamAV?

Clam AV is an open source antivirus platform which provides antimalware protection for users. The engine offers a range of anti-virus solutions, including email and web scanning, and endpoint security.

Statistics from Slintel show that ClamAV is used by more than 300 companies globally.

The engine was originally developed for Unix, but has third-party versions available to users of macOS, Linux, and Microsoft Windows, among others.

Microsoft has released scripts in an attempt to help users fix an issue caused by a faulty Windows Defender update issued on 13 January.

The tech giant pushed a Microsoft Defender for Endpoint update which caused users to experience a “series of false positive detections” for the Attack Surface Reduction (ASR) rule: 'Block Win32 API calls from Office macro'. The result had the unintended effect of deleting Windows shortcut (.lnk) files, and only affected update builds between 1.381.2134.0 and 1.381.2163.0.

Microsoft published instructions on 14 January detailing how to help system administrators restore shortcuts that were accidentally deleted by the update. First, the tech giant is advising customers to update to build 1.381.2164.0 or later. However, this will not restore deleted files.

When the update was initially deployed and system administrators were looking for ways to repair their systems, one of the suggested fixes suggested by administrators was to turn “Block Win32 calls from Office macros” into audit mode. Microsoft has now said this can safely be turned back into block mode once the new update has been installed and deployed.

The tech giant has also outlined steps clients can take to retrieve deleted Windows shortcuts. It said this works for “a significant subset of the affected applications that were deleted". The steps are provided in a PowerShell script, with Version 1.1 available on GitHub.

Microsoft has provided Microsoft Defender advanced hunting queries (AHQs) to help administrators find shortcuts that have been affected by the rule "Block Win32 API calls from Office macro". There are three AHQs in total:

1. The first retrieves block events from devices running the ASR rule which has block mode enabled
2. The second retrieves events from devices running the ASR rule, which have enabled both block and audit mode
3. The third AHQ retrieves the number of devices running the ASR rule and finds out whether it exceeds 10,000 devices

Some administrators have voiced concerns about the scripts provided by Microsoft, claiming that they don’t report all the shortcuts that have been lost.

“We have many devices that have lost at least all office shortcuts. The AH[Q] only reports a few of them,” wrote one user on the Microsoft community website.

“This script isn't a definitive fix, it misses various apps as discussed by others. You cannot simply customise it/add all your apps as indicated and does not really 'restore' anything - it just creates a new shortcut as the original folders in start menu [and] programs still exist but the shortcut is not restored there,” said one user.

“Also doesn't address anything other than the start menu [such as] quick access [or] toolbar shortcuts. Three days on and [this is] the best Microsoft can do? And the next update is 8pm tonight UTC.”

Since users have experienced problems with the scripts, members of the community have developed their own solutions and are sharing links to GitHub with their own scripts.

Tech workers have been engaged in online discussions, trying to fine-tune the crowdsourced solutions to the Windows Defender issues.

The community-developed scripts are lacking in functionality for non-English speaking countries, however, a large list of applications have been added with more being added throughout Monday.

At the time of writing, major applications from Microsoft, Adobe, Google, Mozilla, Dell, Nvidia, RingCentral, and many more are supported with users reporting positive results.

A new Windows Defender update has caused issues for IT admins, deleting Start Menu, Taskbar, and desktop shortcuts on Windows devices.

One user raised the issue in a Microsoft community support thread, saying that after the morning update of security intelligence to version 1.381.2140.0, Defender appears to be deleting clients' links to applications.

The issue appears to stem from an attack surface reduction (ASR) rule made in the latest Defender update. Users reported that the problem is with the specific ASR rule: Block Win32 API calls from Office macros.

Discussions began during the late morning on Friday in an online community for IT system administrators, where a number of users have reported that applications went missing from their devices.

“I've seemed to have lost all Microsoft apps, outlook/excel/word,” wrote one user. “an error message comes up saying it's not supported and then the app seems to have uninstalled.”

Another said: “...looks like that all shortcuts which are located in ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs will be deleted instantly".

Wider complaints revealed all .LNK files were being automatically deleted. Some reported seeing them all send to OneDrive's Recycle Bin.

“We're investigating an issue where users are unable to access application shortcuts on the Start menu and Taskbar in Windows,” Microsoft said on Twitter. “For more details and updates, please follow the SI MO497128 in your admin center.”

Microsoft said it has identified the specific rule which was “resulting in impact” and has reverted the rule to prevent any further impact while it investigates further.

To fix the issue, some users advised that changing the "Block Win32 API calls from Office macro" rule to audit only worked for them. Others said deleting the ASR rules, specifically 92e97fa1-2edf-4476-bdd6-9dd0b4dddc7b, also remedied the situation.

However, it remains unclear whether after implementing the fix, whether the shortcuts will automatically return. Some users have had to manually recreate their shortcuts again.

"IT administrators have reported that users of Microsoft Defender have lost desktop and taskbar application shortcuts," said Muhammad Yahya Patel, security engineer at Check Point Software, to IT Pro.

"The immediate reaction is to think the machine has been breached, as this would be a classic sign of files and shortcuts disappearing, especially on a large scale. That means IT admins are rushing to perform virus scans to detect the attack.

"The impact of this update is huge as IT teams do not know if they will be able to recover all the deleted icons and shortcuts, or if they are going to have to recreate this for all endpoints in their organisation.”

IT Pro has contacted Microsoft for comment.

Finnish company F-Secure offers separate consumer and business security solutions and has relaunched its enterprise endpoint protection portfolio under the new WithSecure brand. The underlying product family remains largely the same, with the Elements Security Center cloud portal providing a central point to manage them all.

The Elements Endpoint Protection (EPP) module on review can look after Windows and macOS workstations, Windows, Linux and Citrix servers, plus Exchange and SharePoint hosts. Along with malware protection, EPP applies web content security and removable device controls, and the price includes patch management for Windows OSes as standard.

EPP's DeepGuard feature exposes zero-day attacks and unknown malicious programs by analysing file contents, system change attempts and program behaviour. An EPP Premium subscription increases yearly device costs to £34 and adds application controls plus WithSecure's DataGuard, which uses behavioural rules to detect potential ransomware activity.

The Elements portal home page provides an overview of licensed products, their status and the devices under protection. The EPP module is accessed from the same console, and its dashboard presents graphs showing the number of protected devices and the status of software updates with a list highlighting vital security events.

Deployment is simple: you can email a link to users or download the agent directly and place it in a central distribution point. Either way, the agent takes five minutes to install, connect to the portal and acquire updates. We deployed the iOS protection app by sending email invites from the portal and, when the app had loaded, it created a VPN link to the nearest WithSecure concentrator and applied reputation-based web filtering. The Elements home page is being updated and currently can't show mobile devices, but the EPP dashboard displayed them without any problems.

A preconfigured read-only profile is assigned to devices on first contact. This enables full protection and allows users to access the local interface, run manual scans and turn off features.

Another default profile is provided that stops users from accessing the agent settings, and we cloned these and used them as a basis for our own profiles. Profiles offer full control and are used to manage real-time scanning, permit users to run manual scans, determine when automatic updates occur and schedule regular system scans.

Web protection includes reputation-based web page scanning, safe search enforcement, browser plug-ins to show link reputations in searches and content control, with a list of 32 URL categories you can block. The infection reports from the older portal have been replaced with a more informative security events view, where you can also enable email alerts.

We were impressed with EPP's lightning-fast reactions: after introducing malware to our test clients, the security events page listed them in 15 seconds with email warnings issued within five minutes.

EPP can be augmented with the optional Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) module, which provides a proactive stance on attacks that can automatically isolate compromised systems before they affect others. You can also extend your security umbrella over Microsoft 365, as the Collaboration Protection module keeps threats at bay for Exchange and SharePoint Online, and both this and EDR are accessed from the same cloud portal as EPP.

WithSecure's Elements Endpoint Protection is a good-value choice. It's simple to deploy, supports a wide range of client platforms and is easily managed from the Elements cloud portal.

SMBs that want endpoint protection with an emphasis on simplicity will find Avast's cloud-managed business security solutions could fit the bill nicely. It's easy to control costs, too, with Avast offering a range of versions covering home and small offices with up to ten users, plus Essential, Premium and Ultimate versions which can all protect up to 100 devices.

We reviewed Premium Business Security (PBS), which takes all the protection services from the Essential version and adds removable device controls plus Avast's built-in VPN service for securing workstation internet connections. The Ultimate version includes Windows patch management and increases yearly costs for 25 devices to £1,023.

Installation choices are plentiful. You can download the Windows and macOS agents and place them in a central distribution point or email a downlink to staff and remote workers. LAN deployment can be sped up by promoting one system to scanning agent status, viewing the list of discovered devices and pushing the agent to them directly from the cloud portal.

Protection starts immediately: unless otherwise requested, endpoints are assigned a default policy that has all the main security services enabled. Policies are a powerful tool and allow you to enable Avast's CyberCapture Windows service for blocking unknown files and new threats, real-time anti-malware scanning, app behaviour, mail and web activity shields, a client firewall, a security browser extension, anti-spam and a sandbox for running untrusted or unknown apps in a safe environment.

If permitted, users can load the agent interface, view their protection status, run on-demand scans, access the sandbox and use the webcam shield to block snoopers by only permitting their camera to be used by specific apps. Supporting Windows and macOS clients, the ransomware shield protects nominated files and folders from encryption attempts by untrusted apps.

Mobile support includes Android and iOS devices, but although the apps are included free with every device seat in your subscription, Android users get the lion's share of security services and neither can be cloud-managed. All we could do with the iOS Security & Privacy app on an iPad was enter our subscription key, create an instant connection to Avast's VPN service for secure web browsing and see if the app considered our Wi-Fi connection safe.

The Avast cloud management portal sees a substantial redesign, making it even easier to use, and its simplified dashboard tells you everything you need to know about your security posture. A top table shows all threats broken down into unresolved, quarantined and resolved status, with each providing hot links for viewing detected threats and compromised endpoints.

A pie chart alongside provides an overview of all protected systems, while below is a real-time graph showing all activity for the past two weeks. Reporting doesn't see many improvements, with the portal offering a set of canned reports for executive summaries, threats, devices, audit logs, tasks and USB device usage, with no options to create custom ones.

Avast responds quickly to threats. After introducing genuine malware to our test Windows 10 clients, the agent blocked every one and warnings were posted in the dashboard in as little as 30 seconds. We also set up email notifications from the portal, and alerts for all of our tests were received in no more than five minutes.

Mobile device management would round out Avast's endpoint security offering nicely, but we can't fault it for the sheer depth of protection features on offer. SMBs will find it simple to deploy and easily managed, while its subscription plans are good value.

To assess how well consumer-grade security packages actually handle threats in the wild, we draw on real-world tests carried out by not one but two specialist antivirus testing labs – namely AV-Comparatives.org and AV-Test.org. The scores we cite represent the average of the ratings reported by each lab in their latest available reports. The number of false positives represents the total number of incorrect alerts raised up by each package, across both labs’ tests.

To measure the impact of each security product on system responsiveness, AV-Comparatives uses a combination of its own in-house test suite and the PCMark 10 benchmark, while AV-Test times a series of standardised tasks, including launching applications, opening websites and copying files, on both a typical and high-end PC. We convert these scores into a percentage and take the average to reach our performance rating for each suite we test.

We also run our own speed tests, using each suite to scan through an external hard disk containing 55GB of assorted files, including documents, images, application installers – and the EICAR test file, a harmless bit of code that all security packages identify as faux-malware for testing purposes.

While protection and performance are of great importance when choosing a security suite, those aren’t the only things we consider. We extensively road-test each package ourselves, and take into account the accessibility and user-friendliness of the interface, as well as the breadth and usefulness of features beyond the standard scanning component. Naturally, we also weigh up value for money, and all of these factors are combined to award each security suite a star rating out of five.

APM and observability tools have become powerful analytics platforms that ingest multiple telemetry feeds, providing critical insight into application performance. The significant differences amongst the vendors mean infrastructure and operations leaders need to consider strategic monitoring choices.

This Gartner report looks at the capabilities of APM and observability tools, including security functionality, application monitoring on mobile, support for VDIs, and integrations with service management tools, amongst others.

Read now to gain insights into the current vendor landscape and how IBM Instana has been recognised as a leader in this field.

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Malwarebytes has announced a new managed detection and response (MDR) service, which has been designed to help organisations bridge their cyber security staff and knowledge gaps.

Combined with the firm’s endpoint detection and response (EDR) technology, the MDR offering provides threat prevention and remediation services through a team of cyber security experts, including both automated and human-led protection.

The service includes dedicated analysts assigned to remotely monitor an organisation’s network 24/7 to detect, analyse, and prioritise new threats.

In an announcement, the company said its new offering can function as an extension of existing teams, or as a complete solution for organisations that lack dedicated security staff.

"We've recruited an incredible team of dedicated experts across the globe and empowered them with our award-winning tools and AI-based threat modelling to be a powerful force multiplier for SMBs and MSPs," said Bob Shaker, VP of managed services at Malwarebytes.

Malwarebytes’ EDR technology provides lightweight, integrated endpoint security that bundles together real-time continuous monitoring and endpoint data collection, with automated response and analysis, it said.

For SMBs and managed service providers (MSPs) swamped with security alerts, the combination of EDR with human threat intelligence has been designed to help prioritise, detect advanced malware attacks, analyse past indicators of compromise, as well as reinforce resiliency.

Additionally, the vendor says it will also help reduce security costs and provide rapid time-to-value, thanks to automated onboarding that provides a speedy route from purchase to service operation.

Malwarebytes MDR arrives as many organisations are struggling to recruit staff with the required digital skills. Back in April, research conducted by the Open University found that more than three quarters (77%) of surveyed IT decision-makers said they were currently facing a digital skills gap in their organisation.

Back in 2020, a UK government report also discovered that 27% of businesses have a skills gap when it comes to incident response, and that 48% of surveyed companies were hiring individuals without confidence in their abilities to perform basic tasks.

With its new MDR service, Malwarebytes said it is now taking steps to help bridge this gap and ensure businesses have adequate protection.

“This is just the beginning as we continue to accelerate product innovation and deliver new services to secure chronically underserved SMBs and empower MSPs to be their heroes," said Shaker.

SecureAnywhere’s Webroot has been in the cybersecurity business since 1997 and today offers solid products for protecting the safety of your devices both at homes and workplaces. Its Webroot SecureAnywhere AntiVirus is an interesting and lightweight platform which users can fully test during a two-week free trial, but it means having to give up some basic information about yourself (name, email address). No credit card details are necessary.

Installation

The setup is exceptionally quick and effortless and your protection will begin immediately after it’s done, without triggering any annoying restart processes. The only process that will be started, in addition to real-time protection, is the initial system scan that is typically done in under a minute. It doesn’t even matter whether you have any other security products installed - Webroot won’t clash with them or require you remove them first, which isn’t something several other antivirus solutions can boast with.

You won’t even notice the program’s presence, thanks to its extremely light weight - there’s only one 3.77MB executable and an .ini file in its installation folder. It will only add two background processes, consuming only 10MB RAM, so no effect on your system’s performance is felt.

Features

On top of this, the scans are a lot quicker than what is offered by the competition, taking only around 50 seconds (20 seconds is claimed on the website though). There’s quite a long list of features you’ll see here, including real-time antivirus, anti-phishing, and anti-ransomware protection, blocking suspicious URLs (installs a browser extension), and a firewall of sorts.

We say ‘of sorts’ because this firewall doesn’t feature the typical detailed settings for all the ports and protocols. On the contrary, all this is automatic, with the program constantly on the lookout for any novel and untrusted processes trying to connect to the Internet, as well as any new connections established by untrusted apps. If it notices such behaviour, it will ask you to allow or block them. Experts might prefer to have some sort of configuration options here, though.

The interface, holding lots of buttons, icons, panels, and switches may appear overwhelming to some users, especially beginners, but for an experienced user, it just means more options are visible immediately. It’s also something that’s easy to get used to.

Once you get used to the slightly complicated interface, you’ll discover that you can scan your device in multiple ways: Quick - which scans only your RAM, Full - which checks your local hard drives, Deep - analyses your device for Trojans, rootkits, and so on, as well as Custom - where you can choose specific files and folders that need to be scanned. Scans can also be triggered by right-clicking on the specific folder, folder, or drive you want to have scanned in the Explorer.

Any found threats can be successfully manually removed together with their Registry entries in the Antimalware Tools section.

As every decent antivirus in the industry, this one as well has solid real-time URL filtering and anti-phishing capabilities, thanks to the company’s huge database with 25,000 new malicious websites being added to it each day.

Webroot’s product also offers a sandbox, a safe and isolated environment where you can test suspicious programs without giving them a chance to affect your system.

The amazing features don’t stop here either. There’s also a set of useful system repair options such as ‘Set system policies to defaults’. This allows it to fix situations such as when a malicious process has disabled your Task Manager or Registry or forced any other policy-type restriction.

Performance

This antivirus solution hasn’t been tested by the major labs like AV-Test and AV-Comparatives in a long time. It’s mainly because, unlike other products, Webroot lets a malware sample run watching it for any suspicious behaviour before removing it. Most of the labs typically mark an antivirus product as successful if it blocks the sample before it runs, which explains why Webroot would score low.

There have been some exceptions, like in SE Labs Home Anti-Malware Protection reports, but not with any noteworthy results in terms of the product’s quality (even disappointing, to be honest), whereas other providers scored much better.

MRG Effitas, which takes into account behaviour-blocked malware and sometimes tests Webroot, is the only lab that has commended Webroot AntiVirus for its malware-detecting and blocking capabilities, as well as the minimum usage of system resources in its Q2 2018 MRG Effitas 360 Degree Assessment & Certification report.

Pricing

Considering everything the solution has to offer, it comes as no surprise that it’s a bit more expensive than the competition, costing you £22.49 for only one device during the first year.

The price rises even more when you increase the number of devices and length in years, but it will get you excellent discounts - a three-year, three-device license is priced at £64.99 for the first term. After the first terms, prices increase though.

Final verdict

Webroot SecureAnywhere AntiVirus may have rather disappointing results when tested by the big-name labs (although it had a pretty decent performance in our simple malware detection tests). However, its other features certainly draw attention to it.

It’s remarkably fast and lightweight, powerful in blocking malicious links, one of the lightest solutions of its kinds in the industry, and it doesn’t clash with other security products, making it an ideal companion to Windows Defender in defending your device against threats.

Besides, it offers tons of options and surprising extras you won’t find in many other products (albeit slightly lacking some configuration options experts might like), such as a sandbox environment and fixing system policies.

• The best antivirus software of 2021

Sophos keeps its consumer range simple with only two options - free and premium. When installing the Free version, users automatically get a 30-day free trial of Sophos Home Premium, reverting to Sophos Home Free once this period is over. To download the program, you’ll need to sign up with your email address. Both packages are only available on Windows and Mac devices. Android devices can be protected via the company’s Intercept X range.

Sophos Home Free

The free tier, called Sophos Home Free, expectedly provides only the core service, but there are also some interesting extras that might make it worthwhile for a modest user reluctant to pay for a decent antivirus.

The basic service includes the usual - antivirus protection and blocking dangerous websites. Only a full scan is possible. Additions are present in the form of remote management of up to three additional devices that are using this package, as well as parental controls that include blocking adult, violent, and other kinds of content. That said, these controls may be a bit easy to bypass by a teenager with an interest in technology.

Accessing any other complex features than the full scan will require a visit to the Sophos Home web interface, where all the additional options and features are located. Although this might seem counter-intuitive, it has its perks as well - you can manage all the secured devices from one location, especially useful for family members who aren’t very technically savvy or simply don’t want to bother themselves with such things.

Sophos Home Premium

Paying for Sophos Home Premium will add more features, such as advanced malware scanning and cleanup, improved real-time threat monitoring, anti-phishing capabilities, an additional layer of defences against ransomware, as well as a set of privacy tools that include webcam protection.

Upon running the first time, Home Premium will conduct an initial system scan which can take around 20 minutes. Installing it will encumber your system with around 1.4GB of files, which is a bit unusual, considering this platform isn’t exactly abundant with extra features and all the complex options are accessible via the web interface. Moreover, it will add a whopping 17 background processes and a few drivers, although this doesn’t hinder the device’s performance drastically (other than taking a bit longer to boot the system).

The Scan options are surprisingly limited, with the full system scan as the only option. In other words, you can’t directly configure the scan, there’s no quick scan option, or any other scan type, for that matter. When you start the scan, there’s no way you can do anything else in the app unless you cancel it or wait for the scan to end (and this can take over an hour). A welcome feature is a program adding the right-click scanning option to Explorer, which allows you to scan specific files, folders, or drives.

Users will also notice that the app interface itself is rather rudimentary and limited. On the bright side, this means beginners won’t have any problems using it. Deeper settings and security options can be accessed via a web interface only, which might cause some inconvenience.

Once you reach the web interface, you’ll find that this kind of management system has its positive sides - if there are multiple devices using this antivirus, you’ll be able to monitor and control all of them from one place.

The Settings pages can be accessed from the Protection tab, and from there, you can schedule scans and customize which files, folders, or drives you want to have excluded from those scans. From there you can also turn specific options on and off, such as the exploit defence for browsers, browser plugins, etc., protection against DLL hijacking, prevention of backdoor traffic, and so forth. There are even additional layers to protect your device(s) from sandbox-aware malware.

As you might’ve noticed, these features are highly technical, so a beginner wouldn’t have much understanding of how and why they should tinker with them in the first place. In addition, most of these features are enabled by default, so perhaps it’s best to leave them alone, even if you do know that activating the ‘APC violations’ switch means Application Procedure Calls (APC) will be prevented from running their code and harming your device.

Unfortunately, Sophos Home isn’t a frequent guest among major independent testing labs. However, among the select few that do include it in their reports, such as the SE-Labs Home Anti-Malware report for October-December 2019 report, it delivers satisfactory results, sharing the third place with six other antivirus solutions (among 15 contestants) in the SE-Labs’ analysis (described as ‘mid-range or better’).

Another test that ranks Sophos Home relatively high is the AV-Comparatives’ Real-World Protection Test, where this product has taken the fourth place among 17 contenders, ranking higher than the likes of Avast, McAfee, ESET, and VIPRE.

Lastly, Sophos Home Premium has passed all of our own tests, detecting and removing with great success each threat we’d put against it.

Users of Home Premium can also take advantage of the live chat and email customer support which is available from 8am to 8pm EST (US Eastern Standard Time), Monday-Friday. The one-year license that can cover up to 10 devices will cost you £49.95.

Final verdict

Sophos Home pretty much fits the saying “you get what you pay for”. Its Premium product is very cheap but also severely limited in many options and features that are standard in other solutions of its kind and it uses a web interface that can be slightly inconvenient. Having said that, it’s exceptionally easy to use for beginners, can cover up to 10 devices, and has one central dashboard that allows you to manage all the PCs running this antivirus. On top of that, it’s very efficient in detecting and removing malware.

• The best antivirus software of 2021

We’re living in a dynamic moment in terms of technology. Even the criminals have become more tech-savvy and are using innovative ways to steal your sensitive data, identity, and/or money, or simply to infect your device with malware that will render it useless.

iPhone users may be at a lower risk from these threats than PC users, but they’re not entirely safe from them. Considering how many sensitive operations are nowadays handled on our iPhones, taking the necessary precautions in the form of a good antivirus is a wise strategy.

Not all security apps are made equal, so let’s look at some that are worthy of your attention.

The best iPhone antivirus software available

Avast Security & Privacy

Avast has a host of powerful security products for various platforms and iOS is no exception. Its iPhone app - Avast Security & Privacy - is available for free, although some ultra-advanced features are still reserved for its premium version.

For instance, scanning for threats and vulnerabilities, malicious website blocking, Wi-Fi security, and privacy tips are free. You also get Identity Protection for one account, as well as a Photo Vault that stores 40 of your photos in a secret, encrypted folder, protecting them from overly curious individuals by PIN, Face ID, or Touch ID. Since the June update, you can import multiple photos into the library.

If you pay for the premium version, Identity Protection is available for all your accounts and the Photo Vault can hold all of your photos, not just 40. The premium version will also provide you with VPN protection which will encrypt your Internet traffic on any network, even an unsecured one.

Unsure about whether you’ll like it? No worries, there’s a 14-day free trial period if you take a yearly subscription and a 7-day period if you go for the monthly subscription. Do note that you’ll have to cancel the subscription before the trial ends unless you want to proceed with paying for the whole thing.

Avira Mobile Security

You can be certain that Avira Mobile Security has got your back as it is the product of an award-winning security company with more than 30 years of experience in protecting our devices.

To protect your iPhone, it offers only the best - a free VPN to keep your Internet activities hidden and your data safe, Identity Safeguard to check if your email has been leaked, Web Protection against infected websites, and anti-theft Phone Locator and siren that alerts everyone near your phone that it has been stolen by the person holding it.

And it doesn’t even stop there. You can create a Blacklist of phone numbers whose calls you don’t want to take, as well as blocking spam and unwanted texts. Additionally, US and Canadian users can use the scam calls blocker feature. The app can scan for all devices connected to your Wi-Fi and it allows you to back up and restore your contacts to email, Google Drive, or Dropbox.

Furthermore, its Device Analyser feature lets you keep control over your iPhone’s usage of memory and storage, so you can optimise its performance.

Lookout

Lookout keeps your iPhone safe by using multiple levels of deep protection, depending on which version you’ve chosen. Lookout Basic includes a System Advisor that alerts you of out-of-date software on your device, as well as missing device tools such as Theft Alerts, Locate & Scream, and even Signal Flare to alert anyone around the thief about the situation. In addition, the ID Scan feature can determine if users' emails have been involved in any known data breaches and can suggest courses of action if they were.

For a small fee, Lookout Premium will get you secure browsing, Safe Wi-Fi, and reports of any breach affecting a company, app, or service you use, along with advice on how to best mitigate the consequences.

The US-only Lookout Premium Plus is a bit more expensive but includes all of the above, plus identity theft protection with Cyber Watch, SSN (social security number) Watch, Social Media Watch, Identity Restoration and Theft Insurance, and even the Lost Wallet Recovery tools.

McAfee Mobile Security

McAfee Mobile Security lists all the usual suspects that a solid iPhone antivirus should have to maintain your privacy and security in the face of outside threats. These entail superior System Security Scan capabilities, Contacts Backup, and secure Media Vault which automatically encrypts your photo sessions and can be opened with a secure PIN, Face ID, or Touch ID.

The Anti-Theft Protection includes a GPS tracker that can locate your phone from anywhere in the world, a remote alarm you can trigger from your Apple Watch, remote wiping of your iDevice, as well as capturing a photo of the thief and emailing it to you.

Additionally, secure Wi-Fi scanning is there to enable safe browsing on every network and alert you if there are any security problems.

All these options are completely free but if you pay for the premium Standard plan, you’ll also get a safe web feature, that protects you against malicious and phishing websites or ARP spoofing. The other, more expensive premium Plus plan, will get you the Unlimited Wi-Fi Guard VPN, plus all the features from the Standard tier.

Both premium plans remove the annoying ads that the free version has and offer a 7-day free trial.

Trend Micro Mobile Security

Trend Micro Mobile Security offers website filtering for Safari and other browsers. It also blocks ads and trackers to maintain your privacy, increase loading speeds, and reduce data usage, all through its Content Block features.

Speaking of browsers, this antivirus platform has its own, called SafeSurfing. This browser lets you be certain your browsing history is not being tracked or recorded, malicious websites aren’t loaded, and mature content is blocked from your children’s eyes.

Your incoming texts are scanned for suspicious links and isolated into a junk folder if suspicion is confirmed. To make sure your phone is configured for optimum protection, just check the Device Access Status. Also, there is a scam message reporting function.

Thanks to the Social Network Privacy feature, this iOS app can also scan the privacy settings of your Twitter and Facebook accounts and warn you of any identified issues. As is usual in the industry, this antivirus software also features its own anti-theft measures which allow you to locate your missing iPhone using Wi-Fi, GPS, or even cell towers.

Trend Micro Mobile Security isn’t free, but there’s a free trial during which you can see if you like what it has to offer.

F-Secure SAFE

The iOS version of F-Secure SAFE offers all the usual protective mechanisms and then some. The app provides the usual website filtering preventing you from accessing potentially malicious websites. There's also a built-in AdBlocker.

Through its Banking Protection tool, every website you visit is scanned to see whether it’s one of the ‘trusted’ places for online banking or shopping. As an extra measure, your connection is scanned to check if it’s secure, as well.

Your device will be kept safe from theft with the help of Finder features that include an alarm and device locator, although not much else (like remote wiping or locking, flare, and so on).

Furthermore, your young ones can be kept safe from unwelcome content thanks to the SAFE’s system of parental controls that filters content by category, eliminates dubious websites from search results and even lets you enforce browsing time limitations. That said, these limits don’t limit the use of other browsers or apps. You can, however, restrict these by disabling them in the device’s settings.

Barracuda CloudGen Access

Barracuda CloudGen Access (former Fyde Mobile Security & Access) isn’t your typical antivirus app but it’s a worthy companion to your iPhone security, especially since it’s available for free. The best part? It won’t reduce your battery life unlike some other security and privacy solutions.

Once you set up the app, you’ll have unlimited, continuous, and real-time protection against unsafe Wi-Fi networks, fake and malicious websites. Barracuda makes this possible thanks to gathering global attack data from millions of Barracuda users - totally anonymous, of course.

The provider also promises to never collect, store, or sell your personal information, nor that any of your identifying information is ever seen by Barracuda staff or anyone else, providing that extra reassurance many will appreciate.

Though we might not all use antivirus software in our personal lives, with many of us placing trust in the basic, free threat detection tools that come with our desktop and mobile devices, this should not be the case for businesses.

Every organization needs a comprehensive antivirus strategy, and for most, this means investing in a trustworthy and effective antivirus software solution.

But knowing where to start and what features to look for in antivirus software can be far from simple. For some small businesses, a step above the free tier will provide sufficient protection until they expand further – others will be looking for more comprehensive capabilities, including mobile device protection and targeted scans for ransomware.

How to choose antivirus software

The first consideration for any business leader adopting antivirus software should be the scale of the workforce they're looking to protect. This will have implications on cost – antivirus plans tend to charge on a per-user, per-year basis – as well as the kind of threats they could be facing.

For example, a business with 200 or more employees might find better value for money in spending more up-front on enterprise-grade antivirus software that comes with a level of onboarding support and active vulnerability scans, to cover their expanding attack surface as well as provide each and every worker with tailored threat protection.

Another deciding factor is how many IT workers an organization has and the scale of the cybersecurity team – if it has one at all. No antivirus software can entirely replace human oversight, but the best solutions can help with tasks such as automatic patch management, inbox protection, and flagging phishing campaigns, which can have a profound impact on the overall security of an organization.

The operating system

Leaders also need to consider which operating systems they're catering to, across their workforce. This may seem like a simple consideration but it can be easy to get confused about which software is compatible on what operating system (unless you have our article to hand). In general, users of macOS and Windows will have access to a very wide range of antivirus options, as by and large the major developers create apps for these operating systems as standard.

Linux users can have a tricker time, as not all software is designed to run on the operating system natively. In most cases it can still be run using additional tools or third-party software, though this is far from the easiest solution for less technical businesses or enterprises looking for centralized, managed security software.

Future-proofing

Finally, the best antivirus software comes with the promise of future updates and continuous improvements to detection capabilities that give businesses an edge over would-be attackers. IT leaders on the lookout for their optimal antivirus solutions might be won over by integrated AI features that help contextualize threats for workers, for example, or by advanced remediation capabilities that shore up defenses against ransomware or data wipers in the long-term.

What is the best business antivirus software?

Bitdefender Ultimate Small Business Security

Bitdefender is an established name in the security space by now and this entry-level business security suite is a capable option for any small business looking to extent protection across its workforce. For a $799.99 annual fee it covers up to 25 users, with two devices allocated per user.

Of course, the most important stat here is the independent antivirus test scores: for which BitDefender scored an impressive full marks. Another notable feature of BitDefender is that it can protect mobile devices as well as desktops, with support for iOS and Android operating systems.

In October 2024, BitDefender added a new AI-powered feature called Scam Copilot, which flags phishing threats and malicious URLs.

The only thing lacking when it comes to Bitdefender Ultimate Small Business Security is policy or identity-based access and management controls. That said, the tool trades these more manual features for a centralized dashboard in the name of better and easier user experience – a potential benefit for small businesses.

Microsoft Defender for Business

Microsoft Defender can seem like the non-choice option for antivirus software, as its most basic version comes as standard on every Windows device. But it's a capable offering, and this paid version for businesses – available at $3 per user, per month – includes support enterprise-grade security for up to 300 users.

A clear downside to relying on Windows Defender for Business is that it's not easily available on macOS, so it's best suited to businesses that are Windows shops. Those who adopt it can benefit from AI-powered endpoint detection, vulnerability management, and monthly threat summaries tailored to their business.

Like other options on this list, Microsoft Defender for Business achieved a perfect 100% in AV-Test.org's antivirus tests, proving its competitiveness with third-party options.

Avast Business Security

Avast Business Seurity is a more comprehensive antivirus solution available in a range of tiers depending on your business needs. While all three packages include its 100% protection rate threat detection, and advanced ransomware protection, the more

The Essential plan costs $31.37 per device, per year, while the Premium and Ultimate plans bump this to $39.85 and $48.33, respectively.

For the extra money, subscribers on the Premium package can filter employee web traffic and block unrecognized USB devices from connecting to network endpoints. The Ultimate tier comes with automatic patch management to prevent attackers exploiting overlooked software vulnerabilities.

Whether you go for the simplest or most expensive Avast offering, this is a comprehensive security package with strong business credentials.

Eset Protect

Eset Protect is another product available in a range of paid tiers, known as Entry, Advanced, and Complete. These are available at $211 per five devices per year for Entry, compared with $275 and $287, respectively, for the others.

Eset stands out in our list in its native support for Linux, alongside Windows, macOS, which could be a big bonus for businesses looking to cover a workforce spread out across multiple devices and operating systems. Advanced and Complete customers can also protect Android, and iOS devices.

All of its features, including endpoint and server security are from a centralized console. Advanced customers get access to advanced protection against ransomware and novel threats, as well as disk encryption, while Complete customers unlock mail server security, vulnerability and patch management, and cloud app protection.

Across independent tests, Eset's antivirus software scored protection ratings between 99.1% and 100%. A potential downside of the software is its price, higher than competitors, and the fact that advanced features like multi-factor authentication (MFA) and premium support are only accessible via additional paid modules. But for those looking to go further than entry-level options, it's a strong contender.

The UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has given provisional approval to NortonLifeLock's $8.6bn acquisition of rival firm Avast.

The decision is seen as the final hurdle for the two companies to merge into a security giant.

A CMA investigation was launched into the deal earlier in the year with the regulator expressing concern that the deal could harm competition and offer up a poor deal to UK customers looking for security software. The deal has already received the green light in the US, Spain and Germany.

After a detailed phase 2 investigation, the CMA concluded that the deal did not raise competition concerns in the UK. Specifically, the regulator found that the merged business would still face significant competition, from the likes of McAfee and a wealth of other suppliers that operate on a smaller scale.

Millions of people across the UK rely on cyber safety services to keep them safe online," Kirstin Baker, chair of the CMA inquiry group, said. "After gathering further information from the companies involved and other industry players, we are currently satisfied that this deal won't worsen the options available to consumers. As such, we have provisionally concluded that the deal can go ahead."

Avast was founded in Prague, Czech Republic, and has become a pioneer of 'freemium' software which is a way of offering some of its applications for free while more premium services can be had for a monthly fee.

NortonLifeLook was previously known as Symantec, a name change it adopted after it sold off its Broadcom enterprise business in 2019. The firm offers a larger premium business, compared to Avast, selling products to combat malware and spyware.

With provisional approval from the CMA, the first possible date for the merger is 12 September.

Avira Free Security looks smart, with its dark colour scheme and tasteful splashes of colour. It also looks quite substantial for a free security suite: distributed across the Security, Privacy and Performance pages you’ll find a total of 16 big buttons for various promising-sounding functions.

Unfortunately, once you start clicking around, you discover that many of the apparent features are dummies. Try to enable web, email or ransomware protection and you’re merely greeted with an advert inviting you to upgrade to the commercial Avira Prime suite.

Other buttons do half a job, then invite you to pay for the rest of it. For example, the software updater scans your system and warns you about apps that might be obsolete, but when you click “Update” it reveals that automatic updates require – you guessed it – an Avira Prime subscription. It’s not unreasonable to ask people to pay for security services, but this isn’t a respectful way to do it. It doesn’t help that the full suite is pretty pricey, costing £52 for five devices in the first year, rising to £86 after that.

Although it’s disappointingly light on features, Avira Free Security delivers quite creditable virus protection. In the latest tests by independent security lab AV-Comparatives.org it managed a 99.96% malware protection rate while connected to the internet – matching Microsoft Defender – with an impressive false positive rate of just one wrong detection in over 10,000 items. That’s better than any other free security solution we’ve tried.

Perhaps because so little is actually included in the free package, it’s also very lightweight. In performance tests carried out by AV-Test.org, Avira slowed down web browsing on a standard PC by just 8% – just a whisker above Defender’s 5%. Apps launched quickly too, with an 8% slowdown that was once again barely any different to the 6% impact of using Windows’ built-in protections.

Alongside the main application, the Avira installer sets up the company’s Phantom VPN service. Like Avast’s VPN, this allows limited use for free, but it’s much more restrictive, allowing just 500MB of protected traffic per month. There’s a link to the web-based Avira password manager service too, which can store and auto-fill any number of passwords for free. The optional Avira Safe Shopping browser extension warns you away from fake sites and blocks trackers – though it also inserts coupon deals into web pages, which feels a little sleazy for a security product.

The component we’re most uneasy about is Avira System SpeedUp – a completely separate app which installs without asking for permission, and pops up when you click various buttons on the Performance page, including Battery saver and Advanced tools. It’s effectively another limited demo: unlocking its features requires a separate SpeedUp Pro licence, which starts at £4 a year, then rockets up to £22.

To be fair, it’s easy to ignore Avira’s upsell attempts. You can leave the antivirus running in the background and enjoy very good malware protection, with minimal impact on performance. If you do want additional features, though, Avast One Essential gives you much more for free, while those seeking a minimal experience might as well stick with Microsoft Defender.

Microsoft has launched Defender for Individuals, which lets users access the antivirus software across multiple platforms including iOS, macOS, Android and Windows.

Defender, which has largely been an in-house product for the tech giant, will offer cyber security features on all the new platforms, but there will be varying types of protection on each.

The aim is to cover a team or family from online security no matter what OS or devices are in use. The Defender dashboard will offer tips and recommendations to boost endpoint security. The system will also grow with a users ecosystem, adding more devices and accounts and keeping them all in sync and up-to-date.

The system includes continuous antivirus and anti-phishing protection for both data and device protection and will allow users to manage and view security protections for everyone on the network from a single, centralised dashboard.

Users can also view their existing antivirus protection, such as Norton or McAfee, with Defender adding them to the dashboard. There will also be functions to receive instant security alerts, recommended remedies, as well as expert advice for device and data security.

Microsoft said it will continue to bring more protections together under a single dashboard, including features like identity theft protection and secure online connection, in the coming months.

However, Defender will work slightly differently on each platform. On Windows, for instance, the system will include a user-friendly dashboard with options to deploy multiple tools to surf the web safely. This won't be the case on the iOS and iPadOS versions, which won't have antivirus protection bundled in. Instead, they will simply have web phishing protections.

On Android, Defender will offer functions to scan for malicious apps as well as the full antivirus protection, which includes phishing.

"We believe every person and family should feel safe online," said Vasu Jakkal, Microsoft's corporate vice president of security, compliance, identity, and management. "This is an exciting step in our journey to bring security to all and I'm thrilled to share with you more about this new app, available with features for you to try today,"

Kaspersky Lab makes no secret of its Russian origins, and in the current climate you might be wary of trusting it with your security. In the past few years though the company has taken steps to put its operations beyond reach of the Kremlin: data storage and processing are now handled in Switzerland, while additional “transparency centres” in Brazil, Canada, Malaysia and Spain allow governments and other institutions to review the company’s code and practices.

There’s no question about Kaspersky’s malware-blocking credentials, though. In the latest independent tests by AV-Comparatives.org the Kaspersky engine achieved a superb online protection score of 99.98% – slightly better than Microsoft Defender on 99.96%. It racked up fewer false positives too: against a set of more than 10,000 items, Kaspersky wrongly raised the alarm just twice, while Defender missed the mark five times. AV-Test.org confirms the engine’s effectiveness: in its tests for January and February 2022, Kaspersky provided impeccable 100% protection against both new “zero-day” and widespread threats.

The user experience is delightfully clean. Although Kaspersky’s main business is commercial security products, the Kaspersky Free Windows client has no adverts or non-functional buttons – a real breath of fresh air.

Instead there are just a few buttons for the major functions. From the Home page you can quickly scan your computer for malware and check online to see whether your personal credentials have been compromised; on the Security page you’ll also find buttons to download emergency boot media, and to scan your Windows configuration for suspicious or corrupted settings.

That may sound a bit minimal, but there’s more going on behind the scenes. Kaspersky Free also quietly takes care of web and email scanning, while the System Watcher component keeps an eye out for ransomware-like behaviour and automatically offers to undo potentially harmful activity. If anything, these components are perhaps a bit too unobtrusive: unless you delve into the program settings you might never realise that they’re enabled. Still, that’s better than AVG’s approach, which puts big fake buttons in its interface purely to tell you that these features aren’t available in the free suite.

A few other tools are hidden away under Settings. A Privacy Cleaner scans your system for records of recently accessed files, cookies, caches and so forth, while an optional on-screen keyboard helps defeat keyloggers. The resource consumption options let you tweak things like automatic scans, to help minimise battery drain or avoid possible interference with games.

That’s not a huge issue, as Kaspersky Free is fairly lightweight. In AV-Test.org’s performance tests, it slowed down web browsing on a standard PC by 14% – that’s some way behind Defender’s 5% impact, but better than Avast One Essential on 17% and well ahead of AVG AntiVirus Free’s 28%. Similarly, Kaspersky had a 10% impact on application launch speed, versus 6% from Defender and 12% from Avast and AVG.

One thing that Kaspersky Free lacks is centralised administration; you can connect up to three installations under an individual email address, but it’s not designed to be managed across businesses. Even if you can live with that, it’s understandable if you’re still uncomfortable rolling out a Russian security solution. But with its excellent protection, generous feature set and unobtrusive design, Kaspersky Free has enough going for it to deserve serious consideration.

McAfee has announced that CEO Peter Leav will step down next month and be replaced by Greg Johnson.

The reason for Leav's departure hasn't been specifically explained by the anti-virus company, but his last day in the role will be 13 June.

The appointment of Johnson, however, appears to fit with McAfee's new business direction. Since last year, the anti-virus software giant has looked to streamline itself as a more "pure-play" consumer protection business, which has a greater focus on fewer offerings. This began with the divestment of its portfolio last year, which was swiftly followed by its privatisation, led by the Advent International consortium.

Johnson is a 25 year industry veteran, with considerable experience working for consumer-facing businesses. He previously served as the executive vice president and GM of Intuit, where he helped to build a multi-billion-dollar consumer technology franchise. This included expanding Intuit's consumer group from a singular service into a suite of financial products for consumers.

Experience with consumer growth appears to be the key element of Johnson's CV that has appealed to McAfee's board of directors. He has an extensive track record for increasing customer bases at a number of high profile companies, including Kraft, Kodak, Gillette, and Advanced Auto. What's more, Johnson is also a member of Qualcomm's board of directors.

"Greg holds an impressive track record of cultivating multi-billion-dollar growth strategies for consumer businesses while delivering increasing value to customers," said Bruce Chizen, chairman of McAfee's board of directors. "As we continue to build on McAfee's 30-year history as a global leader in online protection, Greg's proven expertise makes him the leader of choice to spearhead future growth for the company."

McAfee sold its enterprise business to a consortium led by Symphony Technology Group for $4 billion last year. The company has also made five acquisitions since it was spun off from Intel in 2017, with most of those integrated into its enterprise unit. The cash from its deal with Symphony was largely used to pay off part of its debts, but it is also thought that some of that capital will be used for acquisitions to boost its consumer operations.

This popular security suite has recently received a new name and a new look, but the price hasn’t changed: Avast One Essential is free forever, across Windows, Android, macOS, and iOS devices.

Naturally, there’s a paid option too. The full Avast One package costs £40 a year for up to five devices, or £55 for up to 30 devices. This is sold as a family licence, however, and doesn’t include corporate-friendly management options. Note too that these prices only cover the first year of service, after which the cost doubles.

Still, the free edition is useful enough. Job one, of course, is virus protection, and here Avast One is hard to criticise. In the most recent tests by independent security lab AV-Comparatives.org, the Avast engine provided excellent 99.8% protection when connected to the internet – a fraction above Microsoft Defender’s 99.6%. AV-Test.org achieved even better results, reporting a 100% score for Avast against both unknown zero-day threats and prevalent malware during the first two months of 2022.

The Windows edition of Avast One also includes a nifty custom firewall, and a ransomware protection feature that blocks untrusted processes from writing to your personal folders. While similar capabilities are already built into Windows, Avast’s implementations have a friendlier interface, making it less of a chore to check and configure these security settings.

Something Windows definitely can’t match is a free VPN. Avast One can protect your privacy by routing all your internet traffic through a private server, with a pretty generous transfer limit of up to 5GB a week. The catch is that you don’t get to pick your server location – Avast selects the fastest one for you. If you want a free choice of all available servers, across 37 countries, you’ll need a paid subscription.

Other free features include password protection, which checks whether your credentials have leaked online, and a speedup module that identifies potentially unwanted programs running in the background. A secure custom browser is included too, to help protect you against snoopers.

We do have some reservations about Avast. The interface feels a bit overloaded, with a proliferation of panes, scrollable lists and buttons – some of them acting as advertisements for features that aren’t actually included in the free edition. Most perplexingly, the shortcut buttons to launch a quick scan or activate the VPN are hidden off the bottom of the home page, so you have to scroll down to find them.

Then again, the number of controls reflects the breadth of features on offer, and how configurable they all are, while premium-only features are all clearly marked as such – an example we wish more free software would follow.

Another possible point of concern is false positives: AV-Comparatives noted that, during its tests, Avast One incorrectly gave warnings about 10 legitimate files. Still, that’s out of more than 10,000 test cases, and it’s a lot better than Panda’s free solution, which wrongly intercepted a shocking 96 items.

In all, Avast One Essential is an effective and likeable option for those seeking a free antivirus solution. It’s not as manageable as Microsoft Defender, but it has a good spread of features that add some worthwhile extra layers of protection.

Panda Free Antivirus is the artiest antivirus package we've tested: the interface opens up with a variety of pretty backdrops including mountains, sunsets and wildlife. Oddly, it also shows its name as "Panda Dome", which isn't the title on the website.

Another interesting thing about Panda is its malware performance. In the latest tests by independent security lab AV-Comparatives.org, Panda achieved a flawless 100% protection score. No other free security suite managed that -- even among commercial suites, Norton 360 Deluxe was Panda's only peer. However, Panda also wrongly blocked a shocking 96 innocent items, while most other free packages were in single figures. That's not encouraging: when it comes to malware, you don't want to be second-guessing your security software.

Panda supports both on-demand and on-access scanning, and also has quite a sophisticated scheduler for automated system scans. There's no specific protection for web downloads or emails, however, nor any folder-protection measures for intercepting ransomware attacks.

Instead, you get a rather quirky selection of secondary tools, including a VPN service provided by Hotspot Shield. That's a respectable name in the VPN business, but as usual this free offering doesn't let you choose your own server, and comes with a bandwidth limit. In this case it's a tight 150MB per day; that's fine for sending a few emails or checking a forum, but it's not a patch on the 5GB a week you'll get from Avast.

Scroll down and you'll find a few more features. The Dark Web Scanner checks an online database of leaked credentials to warn you if your username and password have been exposed online, while the Rescue Kit lets you create a bootable flash drive that can be used to clean a heavily infected PC. You can also click to download and launch the portable Cloud Cleaner, which evades malware by running from a self-contained folder.

One slightly surprising inclusion is the USB Protection module, which "vaccinates" flash drives to ensure they can't be infected with autorun viruses. Since the USB autorun feature has been disabled in the OS since Windows 7 it's questionable how necessary this is, though it doesn't hurt to have that option.

More interesting is the Process Monitor. At first glance this looks like a simple copy of the Windows Task Manager, but it's actually more similar to a firewall, exposing which processes are accessing the internet, assigning each one a trust rating and letting you block any unwanted items with a click. A nice touch is that each process shows the date when it was first detected, so you can instantly spot anything that's freshly arrived on your PC.

Panda Free Antivirus - or Panda Dome, or whatever they want to call it -- is certainly a security solution with a character all of its own. Its 100% protection rating is eye-catching to say the least, and the Process Monitor is a real strength. Unfortunately, we can't recommend it: protection is only single-layered, the VPN is of very limited use, and when it comes to false positives the whole suite is just too trigger-happy to fully win our trust.

Kaspersky is one of the oldest names in the antivirus game, founded in 1997, but has recently gone through several rounds in the PR boxing ring. This is in no small part due to the geography of its head office – Moscow, Russia.

Questions around Kaspersky have been raised over the last few years, including whether the firm has ties to the Russian government in any capacity, and whether the products are vulnerable. While these concerns have rumbled for some time, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has thrown them into the spotlight.

Cyber security authorities from countries including the UK and the US have lined up in recent days to dissuade businesses from using Kaspersky’s products. This may prompt many organisations into asking whether Kaspersky’s products are, ultimately, safe to use. Arriving at a definitive answer, though, is far from straightforward.

Serious allegations, severe real-world consequences

Since the invasion, Germany, the US, and the UK have all released separate advisories warning businesses of the alleged risks of using Kaspersky’s products. The perceived heightened risk of Kaspersky, now war has broken out, essentially stems from the legal obligation for Russian-based businesses to comply with requests from the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB). A similar law exists in China and has largely underpinned the West’s discomfort around companies like Huawei.

Such highly official and serious stances, adopted by several governments in a coordinated manner, are rare, and send an explicit message. Germany was the first to go public with its concerns that Kaspersky could be compelled into carrying out cyber attacks against Russia’s enemies, at the behest of the Kremlin. Within days, both the US and UK also released their own statements suggesting similar scenarios and warning businesses against using the company’s products. The US went a step further, though, by making Kaspersky the first Russian addition to the FCC’s blacklist, joining the likes of Huawei and ZTE, officially branding it a threat to US national security.

What Kaspersky is most aggrieved with is the lack of evidence each government has presented in its respective advisories. A Kaspersky spokesperson, indeed, told IT Pro in March these advisories were “not based on any technical assessment of Kaspersky products” and “made on political grounds” – a statement the firm has reiterated since.

A history of alleged Russian ties

To suggest Kaspersky has been viewed with suspicion in recent years would be an understatement. Despite analyst house Gartner saying in 2012 there’s no material evidence to suggest Kaspersky is malicious in its products or behaviours, or has ties to the Russian government, that did little to quell a wave of allegations against the company since.

The US has been particularly persistent in scrutinising Kaspersky, across several administrations, but it arguably all came to a head in 2017. High-profile US media organisations made a number of serious allegations against the company at the time which set in motion a catastrophic chain of events for Kaspersky.

Chief among them was the Wall Street Journal alleging in October 2017 the company’s products were used by Russian state-affiliated hackers to steal hacking tools used by an NSA contractor. Kaspersky vehemently denied these allegations, countering with the assertion the NSA contractor in question accidentally leaked their tools to Kaspersky during the course of normal use of its antivirus product.

Weeks later, the UK’s MI6 expressed concern over Barclays distributing Kaspersky software to more than two million of its online banking customers free of charge. These concerns soon led to Barclays halting its free software initiative, and prompted the NCSC to issue a warning against using Kasperky products at the government level.

Before the year was out, the Trump administration later approved a law banning Kaspersky products across federal and military systems – an order over which Kaspersky unsuccessfully tried to sue the US government.

The move catalysed a global shift in attitude towards the cyber security company. Following the announcement, Lithuania announced a similar ban, as did the Dutch government six months later. The EU officially branded Kaspersky “malicious” and the company, arguably, has since never managed to shake this onslaught of negative PR.

Its tainted image also hasn’t been helped by the fact that its CEO, Eugene Kaspersky, was a former member of the Russian military and was also educated by a KGB-sponsored school through which he earned a technical degree.

What does this mean for Kaspersky products?

With numerous strands to this tale, there’s a lot to unpack. What’s notable is the lack of evidence made public supporting the recent allegations against Kaspersky. Although the claims haven’t been substantiated publicly, governments often withhold such information on national security grounds.

It might also be argued this situation has been fuelled by longstanding geopolitical tensions between the US and its allies, and the Russian and Chinese governments. Both Kaspersky and Huawei were banned by the Trump administration on the basis of alleged ties to the Kremlin and the Chinese state respectively. The principles of these bans were eventually mirrored in domestic laws and initiatives elsewhere. Both the UK and US said Huawei’s infrastructure needed to be ripped out to preserve national security, while concerns around Kaspersky, as we’ve mentioned, go back to 2017 when the NCSC warned against using Kaspersky products at the government level – something it recently repeated in March 2022.

Kaspersky defended itself when the US initially banned it in 2017, but it’s curious it didn’t launch legal action against the Wall Street Journal after the newspaper alleged it stole NSA hacking tools. You could argue that Kaspersky didn’t want to damage its reputation by taking on a well-respected member of the free press, but if the claims were wholly untrue, then you would expect it to follow up in some way on the grounds of defamation.

Without access to information or intelligence likely held back from the public, it’s difficult to say with certainty if Kaspersky products are safe to use, just as we cannot definitively say Huawei is trustworthy either. Governments, when pressed for proof, have been unwilling to provide it in either case. All we can say is it’s notable many Western governments have united in the calls against using Kaspersky products, although the firm has consistently denied any explicit links to the Russian state.

The legal obligation to comply with Russian government orders, though, is true – and a significant reason why cyber security agencies are, only now, warning businesses against using it. With more than 400 million users and 240,000 corporate clients, the legal requirement for a cyber security company as prevalent as Kaspersky to comply with Kremlin orders is, indeed, troubling, even if hypothetical or unlikely. Because of this, it might be wise to err on the side of caution.

The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) has issued a warning for businesses using products and services provided by Russian cyber security company Kaspersky.

Businesses are being urged to avoid using Russian tech providers, with Kaspersky being the only company named in the latest guidance.

High-profile and critical infrastructure companies, as well as organisations aiding Ukraine or criticising the Russian government, are at the highest risk of being compromised by Russian threat actors, the NCSC said on Tuesday.

However, it added that consumers using Kaspersky antivirus on their private IT equipment are unlikely to be targeted by the Russian state and can continue using the products and services.

The warning comes close to five years after the NCSC urged public sector organisations to avoid using Kaspersky antivirus, alongside ensuring that software is kept updated while network configurations and credentials are managed correctly.

“We still think this advice is correct but, given the conflict in Ukraine, the context has changed considerably,” NCSC technical director Ian Levy said on Tuesday.

The heightened risk stems from the Russian legal provision that obligates Russian companies, including antivirus providers such as Kaspersky, to assist the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB).

According to Levy, “the pressure to do so may increase in a time of war”.

“We also have hacktivists on each side, further complicating matters, so the overall risk has materially changed,” he added.

Levy said that the NCSC has “no evidence that the Russian state intends to suborn Russian commercial products and services to cause damage to UK interests”.

The precautions, however, stem from the need to “err on the side of caution”.

“The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence,” said Levy.

The guidance comes days after Kaspersky was declared a threat to US national security and added to the FCC’s List of Equipment and Services Covered By Section 2 of the Secure Networks Act.

Earlier this month, Germany’s Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) also recommended switching away from any Kaspersky product to another vendor. Similarly to the NCSC, the BSI based the recommendation on the risk that the company could be forced by the Russian state to carry out offensive cyber operations.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has officially declared Kaspersky a threat to US national security.

The antivirus provider was added to the List of Equipment and Services Covered By Section 2 of the Secure Networks Act on Friday, becoming the first Russian company on the infamous blacklist that also includes China's Huawei and ZTE.

Passed in March 2020, the Secure Networks Act prevents communications equipment or services that pose a national security risk from entering US networks and obliges the FCC to publish and maintain a list of such equipment or services.

Kaspersky was added alongside China Mobile International (CMI) and China Telecom, with the latter having been banned from providing domestic interstate and international communication services within the US in October 2021.

FCC commissioner Brandan Carr described the decision as “welcome news”.

“In particular, I am pleased that our national security agencies agreed with my assessment that China Mobile and China Telecom appeared to meet the threshold necessary to add these entities to our list. Their addition, as well as Kaspersky Labs, will help secure our networks from threats posed by Chinese and Russian state backed entities seeking to engage in espionage and otherwise harm America’s interests,” he said on Friday.

The decision to add Kaspersky to the list of banned equipment and services comes amid difficult US-Russia relations that have significantly worsened since Russia’s launch of a full-scale invasion on Ukraine in February.

However, in a statement given to IT Pro earlier this month, Kaspersky denounced the war and denied having "ties to any government".

The antivirus provider reiterated its claim on Friday, describing the FCC’s decision as “not based on any technical assessment of Kaspersky products” and “made on political grounds”.

“Kaspersky will continue to assure its partners and customers on the quality and integrity of its products, and remains ready to cooperate with US government agencies to address the FCC’s and any other regulatory agency’s concerns,” it said.

The company added that the FCC’s move was based on the “unconstitutional” 2017 decision to ban Kaspersky products from being used by US federal agencies:

“Kaspersky believes today’s expansion of such prohibition on entities that receive FCC telecommunication-related subsidies is similarly unsubstantiated and is a response to the geopolitical climate rather than a comprehensive evaluation of the integrity of Kaspersky’s products and services.”

Over the weekend, Kaspersky was also expelled from the HackerOne bug bounty platform alongside other Belarusian and Russian entities.

The news comes two weeks after Germany’s Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) recommended switching away from any Kaspersky product to another vendor due to the risk that the company could be forced by the Russian state to carry out offensive cyber operations.

The most productive security teams are going beyond the use of tactical tools for investigation and reporting of security incidents. Instead, they are taking a more strategic, proactive, platform-oriented approach to identifying and assessing security-related risks, proving compliance, and maturing the flexibility and resilience of ongoing operations.

Read this report to learn about the evolution of security monitoring capabilities and discover what comprehensive security technologies companies are investing in to support their work from anywhere (WFA) / hybrid work model.

Provided by

The shift to hybrid working models has transformed the role of endpoint security in the modern enterprise. As a recent report from Gartner makes clear, remote work is now just work. 64% of employees are now able to work from home and two-fifths of them are actively doing so. "The movement to hybrid (or remote work) is a durable trend with more than 75% of knowledge workers expecting future hybrid work environments," the report concludes. "From a security perspective, this requires a total reboot of policies and tools to better mitigate risks."

This is a big deal for resellers and MSPs. IT teams charged with managing and securing a dispersed workforce face countless new points of vulnerability. Those who relied on their traditional network and perimeter-based security models are likely to find – perhaps painfully – that they no longer deliver the protection needed. That’s why channel partners need to step in to help their customers protect their endpoints, making the most of new capabilities like AI and automation to give them more oversight and control.

1. Start with Zero-Trust

Once you’re securing endpoints both inside and outside the corporate network, the classic network security architecture of perimeters and firewalls breaks down and you need a new model to replace it. Zero-trust security isn’t a technology or a set of features, but an approach that makes no assumptions about which endpoints, infrastructure, programs or processes can be trusted, and instead uses intelligence and automation to monitor and hunt for threats. When every action is checked and classified and anomalous behaviour found and blocked, you close down the chances of a compromised endpoint resulting in a serious breach.

With the right technology and services in place, MSPs and businesses can build zero-trust into their endpoint security solutions and start delivering threat detection and remediation capabilities that protect their customers from attack.

2. Layer up and get smart about security

Antivirus products and network firewalls are no longer enough. Endpoint protection involves multiple layers of security, both on the endpoint itself, in the network and running from the cloud. Endpoint protection platforms combine real-time protection and reporting with advanced detection aided by security analytics and real-time intelligence feeds. Endpoint detection and response systems monitor continually for behaviour linked to new exploits, advanced persistent threats and fileless attacks, with everything rooted in zero-trust.

The most effective of these solutions make extensive use of automation and AI, incorporating machine learning and deep learning for continuous monitoring, detection and protection in a way that neither adds to the workload of the IT team nor slows end-users down at work. They also work perfectly within managed services and solutions, giving providers the chance to offload work from their enterprise customers at the same time as strengthening their endpoint protection. What’s more, the more data MSPs can capture and analyse from a range of customers, the better equipped those automated, intelligent systems will be at detecting and warding off incoming threats.

3. Centralise through the cloud

Managing security through a central, cloud-based platform just makes sense. You can monitor endpoints whether they’re on premises or remote. You can apply policies and monitor security from one location using one set of tools. Not only can you manage security, but updates, vulnerabilities, encryption, licensing, privacy and more.

From a reseller or MSP perspective, centralising through the cloud is even more beneficial. As well as the operational efficiencies in handling everything remotely, it becomes easier to protect and manage multiple customers in less time and without hiring new staff. It also helps ensure visibility across more complex or fragmented network architectures. When threats emerge or customers have concerns, you’re in a better position to have all the relevant answers.

4. Simplify and consolidate

While a layered approach is a necessity, that doesn’t mean you want to manage a wide range of security solutions and tools from an equally wide range of providers. This makes it difficult to build up in-depth knowledge, and often results in having solutions in place that overlap, waste time and effort or potentially conflict. You also don’t want solutions that require new IT infrastructure on the premises, or add new tools and processes to learn, adopt and update.

That’s why it pays for MSPs and channel partners to work with a small set of solutions using a minimal set of tools and make the most of built-in automation and integration with existing platforms. Simplify and consolidate, and it’s easier to scale-up, optimise and deliver effective, cost-efficient solutions.

5. Partner with a specialist

MSPs need more from a security vendor. They need specialist expertise, a depth of knowledge and continuous training to help maintain a view across what can be a fast-moving threat landscape. They need solutions and services they can tailor to their customers’ needs, and technologies that evolve to match new security demands. And if that vendor can also provide integrated solutions, automation, consolidation and simplicity, it becomes easier to drive new business and deliver a great service to customers new and old.

WatchGuard EPDR brings together Endpoint Protection (EPP) and Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) capabilities into one easy-to-buy product for maximum security against sophisticated endpoint threats. It protects users from advanced threats, APTs, zero day malware, ransomware, phishing, rootkits, in-memory exploits and malware-less attacks, and also provides IDS, firewall, device control, and URL and content filtering capabilities. EPDR uniquely automates the prevention, detection, containment, and response actions for ultimate security that is easy to manage and deploy.

WatchGuard EPDR is managed in WatchGuard Cloud, providing a single pane of glass view into the entire WatchGuard Unified Security Platform. Offering a single, centralized interface for delivering and managing network security, advanced threat detection, MFA and endpoint security, WatchGuard Cloud delivers efficient management flows and the utmost in security visibility.

To find out more about WatchGuard and how it’s transforming security for resellers and MSPs, please visit https://www.watchguard.com/wgrd-partners/security-of-one-partner

NortonLifeLock’s merging with Avast could reduce competition in the UK antivirus software market due to a shortage of other significant rivals, potentially leaving consumers with worse deals.

That's according to UK’s Competition Market Authority (CMA), which on Wednesday described the two merging companies as “close competitors”. Both NortonLifeLock and Avast develop and distribute consumer-oriented antivirus software platforms as well as utilities such as virtual private networks (VPNs), password managers, and device performance tuning tools.

CMA executive director David Stewart said that the watchdog will launch an “in-depth phase two investigation” into the merger if the two companies don’t offer “a clear-cut solution” addressing the concerns within the next five days.

“We are living more of our lives online and it is vital that people have access to competitive cyber safety software when seeking to protect themselves and their families. NortonLifeLock’s proposed purchase of Avast could lead to a reduction in competition in the UK and ultimately a worse deal for consumers when looking for cyber safety software,” said Stewart.

NortonLifeLock described the CMA’s decision as “surprising”, adding that the company “remains confident that the transaction should be approved”.

“We believe this transaction can only benefit consumers across the globe, including in the UK, through increased innovation and greater consumer freedom and choice beyond big tech platform providers in the burgeoning Cyber Safety market," a spokesperson told IT Pro.

"Regulators from across the globe, including the US Department of Justice, and in Europe the German Federal Cartel Office, and the Spanish National Markets and Competition Commission, have reviewed and cleared the transaction."

NortonLifeLock “will continue to constructively engage with the CMA and their review” and has delayed the finalisation of the merger to “mid-to-late 2022” – months after the original deadline of 24 February 2022.

Formerly known as Symantec, NortonLifeLock rebranded after selling its enterprise security business to Broadcom in 2019. In July 2021, NortonLifeLock and Avast were reported to be engaging in advanced talks over a potential merger, with the two companies confirming the deal in August ahead of the UK takeover code deadline.

Ukrainian protesters have descended on Mobile World Congress (MWC) to call for a boycott of Russian technology.

Brandishing the Ukrainian flag and signs calling for “no tech for aggressor”, the group described themselves as Ukrainian citizens heavily concerned about the mounting death toll of the Russian invasion. An estimated 352 Ukrainians, including 14 children, had been killed since Thursday, according to Ukraine’s health ministry.

The protestors, who gathered outside Barcelona's Fira Gran Via, likened paying for a Kaspersky subscription to sponsoring terrorism and also called for Amazon Web Services (AWS) to “shut down” servers used by Russian entities.

“Our goal here is to ask technological communities all over the world to block Russia, to cut off their technology for Russia,” one of the protesters, called Victoria, told IT Pro.

“We want them on one hand not to buy Russian products, and on the other hand, to ban Russia from accessing their product. For example, we are addressing Amazon and if they cut down [the servers for] Russia, it will have a huge impact. We are asking for support,” she added.

AWS dominates the Russian cloud computing market with a 40% share, significantly outnumbering the country’s own cloud service providers such as Yandex and Mail.ru.

According to Victoria, a boycott could contribute significantly to the safety and morale of the Ukrainian people defending their country. She also addressed the contrast between the experiences of this year’s MWC attendees and the people of Ukraine’s second-biggest city Kharkiv, which is under heavy missile attack from Russian forces.

“This would be a huge help because right now, while we are having this technological conference and people are talking about tech right now, at the very same moment Putin is launching missiles on one of the biggest cities in Ukraine. People are dying right now,” she said.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has a looming presence over this year’s MWC, being mentioned in private and during keynote speeches alike, including Qualcomm’s Monday press conference.

In a statement to IT Pro, Kaspersky denied having "ties to any government":

"We are proud to collaborate with the authorities of many countries as well as international law enforcement agencies, including INTERPOL and Europol, in fighting cybercrime. War isn’t good for anyone. We believe that peaceful dialogue is the only possible instrument for resolving conflicts and hope it will lead to a cessation of hostilities," the company said on Wednesday.

AWS wasn't immediately available to comment on the protestors’ pleas, which come amid proactive measures taken by Microsoft, Google, Meta, and Twitter to disrupt the cyber attacks on Ukraine coming from Russian and Belarusian actors.

On Tuesday, Visa and Mastercard became the latest organisations to block Russian banks from their networks amid heavy international sanctions.

Today, enterprises of all sizes are up against unprecedented security challenges. The growth of remote and hybrid working practices has left IT teams struggling to secure a wider range of endpoints that aren’t always under their direct control. According to figures from YouGov, 37% of UK workers spent some of their week working from home before the COVID-19 pandemic. By September 2021 that had risen to 50%, with 60% saying they would prefer to work remotely at least some of the time.

At the same time, the security landscape grows more threatening, with cyber criminals becoming more sophisticated in how they target their attacks. Last year the UK government’s Cyber Security Breaches survey found that four in ten businesses had experienced a breach or attack in the last 12 months, with that rising to 64% to 65% for medium-sized and larger enterprises. What’s more, the report concluded, a lack of monitoring tools and user monitoring raised the possibility that some attacks were slipping through unrecognised and unreported.

New working practices have opened up new vulnerabilities, and cyber criminals have been quick to exploit them. A 2021 study conducted for HP Wolf Security found that 75% of IT teams surveyed had seen a rise in employees opening phishing links, while 40% of office workers surveyed reported clicking on a malicious email. Almost half (49%) had done so more often since working from home, and 70% of those that had clicked or nearly clicked on a link hadn’t reported it to IT.

To compound the crisis, IT teams have never been under so much pressure. HP’s research shows that the shift to home working has resulted in IT teams spending more time and effort patching endpoint devices, provisioning and securing new devices or triaging threats. The complexity of securing remote and hybrid workforces can be overwhelming. 77% of those HP surveyed said that homeworking was making their job much harder and that burn-out was a serious concern.

In this landscape, traditional software-based endpoint security is no longer up to task. It can provide a decent base level of resilience but can’t safeguard against the full spectrum of malicious email attachments, file downloads, browser exploits, credential theft and phishing links. Software alone can’t detect attacks below the OS level designed to compromise the firmware, or control attacks based on browser-level exploits. Applications designed around recognising malware signatures are powerless to act against script-based fileless threats or zero-day attacks. This is crucial. Google patched out 16 different zero-day vulnerabilities, some critical, from its Chrome browser during 2021. That same browser has a 70% market share.

Hardware-based security meets zero trust

Meeting these challenges requires a new approach. To be more specific, businesses need to consolidate their endpoint security and adopt new security principles anchored in a zero-trust approach, where nothing from device integrity to user identity is taken for granted, and constant behind-the-scenes verification becomes the norm. This starts at the hardware level and extends upwards to cover software and services, minimising vulnerabilities across all endpoints to protect the enterprise as a whole.

The key to this approach is that it’s not just about recognising and blocking attacks but isolating and containing threats and providing automated recovery and remediation. For example, malware that attacks the PC’s BIOS can be difficult to detect, highly persistent and challenging to remove, giving the attacker scope to install ransomware, steal data or infect more applications and devices. HP Wolf Security meets these threats through HP Sure Start, a hardware-based technology that detects when the BIOS has been compromised and automatically restores it.

HP’s Endpoint Security Controller, built into HP’s business and enterprise-grade laptops and PCs, also powers HP Sure Run, which prevents crucial security processes from being disabled by a malware attack by monitoring security-critical processes and repairing and restarting them at any sign of failure. The same controller also enables HP Sure Recover, which allows remote workers or IT teams to securely reimage their devices if the OS is critically damaged or compromised. These hardware-level features add layers of protection you could never get from software alone.

The same applies to HP Sure Click Enterprise, which provides hardware-enforced application isolation and containment. HP Sure Click Enterprise runs each task in a non-persistent micro-virtual machine (micro-VM), which isolates and contains attacks, minimising the attack surface for malicious email attachments, phishing links, file downloads, browser exploits and credential theft attempts without bombarding users or IT teams with unnecessary alerts.

As for emerging fileless or zero-day attacks, HP Wolf Security finds the answer in HP Sure Sense: an AI-based threat prediction technology that uses deep learning to recognise the tell-tale signs of malicious behaviour and malware threats. It can then apply that training to identify new threats before they execute and stop them in their tracks. HP Sure Sense doesn’t replace existing tools but augments and improves them, adding an extra layer of endpoint protection to cover their blind spots. What’s more, because it’s AI-based and designed to work autonomously, it doesn’t need constant updates to remain effective.

Adopting this approach will involve a change of mindset, not to mention new investments in hardware and support, but when there’s an endpoint security crisis brewing, standing still is not an option. HP Wolf Security offers a layered solution that can help your organisation boost its resilience to cyber attacks by detecting and protecting against threats, and prepare you for breaches by boosting your recovery capabilities. With the threat of cyber attacks ever growing and changing, these are the tools you need to be ready for them.

To find out more about streamlining your security stack – and how HP Wolf Security can help – watch our webinar here

I’m about to so do something I’m sure won’t shock regular readers: pick an argument with the powers that be. The organisation in question, being the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) which, by and large, does a splendid job in both public and private sectors in matters of security advice and support. By and large, but not on one occasion recently when it decided the time was right to remind us of some password construction advice it first offered five years ago. It was wrong then and remains so to this day.

Using the perfectly reasonable hashtag of #thinkrandom, that advice was to use three random words as your password. That’s three words, not four, so you can forget about the XKCD comic suggestion of “correct, horse, battery, staple” that’s wedged itself into cyber security folklore. Not that you should use it anyway, as password reuse is obviously verboten if you want to maintain any semblance of a strong security posture.

While admitting the use of three random words is “not a password panacea”, the latest NCSC posting serves to press home the message that it’s better than using traditional password complexity advice, because the latter relies upon us memorising lots of long and complex strings. Using three random words, we are advised, creates passwords that are “strong enough for many purposes”, and helps get around the reuse problem that it says traditional complex passwords creates.

Random access memories

Let’s deal with the last of these first: password reuse. There is absolutely no bloody difference between trying to remember 97 unique complex and random password strings and doing so with 97 three random word passphrases. You will fail unless you are a memory savant. That is a fact. It’s a fact because as humans we are simply not wired to remember random things.

This brings me to the second problem I have with the advice: the reality of randomness. Most people, most of the time, will choose three words that are far from random when constructing a whole bunch of passphrases. What people will do is, totally subconsciously, adopt patterns in the phrases they come up with. Patterns in both the connections between the words used to make recall easier and patterns between the passphrases themselves to make multiple ones easier to recall.

Humans just don’t do randomness well; that’s why there are computer-me-bobs for creating truly random stuff, and more on that later. There’s a really interesting piece of research from the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory, admittedly now almost a decade old but still relevant, that explains this very well. Its evidence on multi-word passphrases was pretty damning: “By our metrics, even five-word phrases would be highly insecure against offline attacks,” the researchers found, because people naturally sway towards speech rather than randomness. “Phrases like young man which come up often in speech are proportionately more likely to be chosen than rare phrases like young table” the research concluded. Which is exactly what I would expect.

There’s an app for that

Look, I perfectly understand plenty of security professionals disagree with me here. Their argument generally being along the same lines as the NCSC, that adopting a three random words approach will create stronger passwords than those we often see being used and reused today. This is true, and I’m not suggesting that Password, or P@ssw0rd, or even P@ssw0rd1 is a super-duper credential to be using. What I am suggesting is that, rather than getting people to use three supposedly random words, it would be far better to advise them to use some form of secure password manager instead.

Skip the whole three words thing, don’t mention it at all, go straight for the “use a password manager dammit” jugular. That way you can create truly random and complex and extremely long passwords, or the application can, and have a unique one for every login.

Of course, the perennial problem of master password creation rears its very ugly head once more. Rather than go over old ground involving muscle memory, encrypted USB sticks (which need yet another password) or a biometric device (JEMpass) and even dice with multiple patterns rolled randomly into a locked box (DiceKeys), let’s approach this from the three random words angle. Or, rather, let’s not. Just three words, no matter how random, would make a spectacularly poor master password if you ask me. Instead, go for five or six, or more if your memory will allow.

These would, of course, need to be random rather than your idea of random. Which is where one password manager, in fact 1Password, comes in. Did you see what I did there? Anyway, it has a password generator that anyone can use – which has the option of generating a passphrase using random words. Just select the “memorable password” dropdown, set the number of words to something you are comfortable with, and you’re away. Other services, of course, are also available, such as Kaspersky's own password generator.

As I say, don’t go for anything too short as this is the key that unlocks all your other passwords. I’d also avoid unchecking the “full words” box as this produces gibberish words that aren’t really easier than a long password to memorise. Practise typing the result over and over to get that muscle memory working, and if you are a 1Password user, be sure to save the “emergency kit” that can be printed out and stored somewhere secure. The reality is that for 99% of use cases a threat actor isn’t going to ransack your house searching for a master password, nor your office for that matter. If you do fall into the 1% then the chances are high that you’ll already be using some kind of security protocol that makes the entire three random words argument moot anyway.

Talking of passwords in the workplace, I can’t wrap up this conversation without mentioning some more research, this time from Beyond Identity. This found that not only did nearly a quarter of employees questioned still have access to accounts from a previous job, but 41% admitted to sharing passwords in the office, and 20% used the same passwords at home as they did for work-related accounts. Just in case you wondered why I bang on about the importance of password hygiene, month after month.

Trend Micro offers an endpoint protection choice for every business: firms that want to keep it all in house can install Worry-Free Business Security Standard on their own server, while those that prefer a hosted solution can use this fully cloud-based option.

It’s aimed at companies with up to 250 devices to protect, and the price is SMB-friendly. Yearly pricing starts at £58 for two devices, rising to £520 for 25, with each licence covering one Windows or Mac workstation, one Windows server or one mobile device.

All the key security features are present. Along with anti-malware scanning you get protection against web threats, web content filtering, a client firewall, removable device controls and mobile device security. A standout feature of both the standard and cloud-hosted versions is an advanced data-loss prevention module, which comes preconfigured to recognise (and optionally block) 244 different types of sensitive data, including British financial and healthcare information.

Ransomware is very much on Trend Micro’s radar, too. The software subjects suspicious processes to a range of tests including predictive machine learning, behaviour monitoring and new program detection – and if the malware isn’t immediately stopped, the program can also directly detect malicious encryption attempts and undo any suspicious changes made by untrusted programs.

As the name implies, another focus of the Worry-Free suite is keeping deployment and administration simple. The cloud portal is easy to use, with a dashboard that keeps you posted on all client activity, detected security risks and policy violations. Clicking on any of the threat categories takes you straight to the portal’s log page, where you can quickly identify the threat type and which clients are affected.

The one place you might hit a hiccup is with initial client setup, as the email invitation process requires a standalone mail client running on your local system. This isn’t a huge obstacle, though: after logging on from a computer with Outlook installed, we were easily able to email invitations to our Windows 10 users. The messages pointed them to a tiny 7MB executable, and after launching the installer, they had the agent running and connected to the portal in less than five minutes, with settings applied from the portal’s default groups for instant protection.

Agents can then be manually moved into specific groups in the portal, each with custom policies. These define real-time and manual scan behaviour, apply predictive machine learning and use one of three web reputation levels to classify and block suspect web pages. Optional global settings can be applied for malware scanning, approved and blocked websites (which override URL-filtering policies) and password protection to stop users disabling the agent.

Data-loss prevention can be set up here too. We created a policy to block all sensitive data, then tried to use Gmail on a client PC to send an email containing a credit card number. The attempt was instantly blocked and logged, leaving Gmail complaining about a lack of network access.

Mobile protection is a mixed bag. Android devices get malware scanning, plus access to the web reputation service and password controls; if you’re using a Chromebook, you get web threat prevention too. As usual, however, iOS options are far more limited. All you can do is enforce complex unlock passcodes, set expiration limits and apply device lock timeouts.

Even so, Trend Micro’s Worry-Free Business Security Services provides great desktop security, plus exceptional DLP and ransomware protection. For small numbers of users it’s good value, and SMBs will find the cloud portal very easy to work with.

There's a saying that the best antivirus product is the one you actually have installed. That's the approach Microsoft has taken: its Defender security system is integrated into every installation of Windows 10 and 11, ensuring a baseline level of protection across the whole operating system.

Defender isn't just widespread - it's effective. Every Windows computer with an internet connection automatically downloads the latest signatures and recognition algorithms on a daily basis, meaning newly identified threats can be very quickly shut down.

And we can't argue with the results. In the most recent tests by AV-Comparatives.org, Defender successfully blocked 99.96% of malware samples; AV-Test.org reported that, during January and February 2022, the software scored a perfect 100% against both known threats and brand-new zero-day attacks.

Defender doesn't operate in a vacuum, however. It's one part of the wider Windows Security app, which includes ransomware protection, reputation-based assessment, firewall management and even parental controls, to prevent kids from inadvertently accessing dangerous or inappropriate content.

Perhaps because all of this is plumbed into Windows at a low level, it has very little effect on system performance. AV-Test.org found that Windows Security slowed down web performance by a mere 5% on a standard PC, compared to browsing with protection disabled. For comparison, Avast One Essential had a 17% impact, while AVG had a massive 28% penalty.

Windows Security also had a minimal impact on application launch speed, incurring a 6% slowdown while Avast and AVG both hit 12%. Defender does seem to scan applications more rigorously when they're first installed: here Windows Security was 14% slower, compared to 9% for Avast and 16% for Avira Free. That's a smart way of doing things, though, since you might launch an application every day, but you're only going to install it once.

Our biggest issue with Microsoft Defender is to do with usability. The whole Windows Security app is a mess, with nine different pages of buttons and links to hunt through. Everyday functions rub shoulders with obscure technical features such as CPU extensions, and ransomware protection is bafflingly turned off by default. That might be to protect users from its impenetrable interface though, which requires you to dig deep into the advanced security settings to approve applications.

Then again, that might not matter - because one of the biggest benefits of Windows Security is that business users don't need to manage it for themselves. Using either group policies or Windows Intune, organisations can control every aspect of user security, ensuring protections are enabled, current and appropriate for the needs of the business and the individual.

That might not appeal to small businesses wanting to minimise their management commitment. In some scenarios, it will make more sense for staff to use a free consumer-grade antivirus solution. In a larger organisation, however, the benefits of central administration will surely outweigh any individual security features: for them, the best antivirus really is the one that's already installed.

It is that time of year again when the internet is awash with deals, cut-price goods, and bargains aplenty. However, Black Friday is also a good time to update your antivirus software and secure your phone, laptop, and computer for a really cheap price (for a year, at least!).

With more and more of our services online now, cloud security is imperative. If hackers get access to one of your accounts, they could feasibly crack into all of them - that's really how you should think of it. So you need the likes of McAfee, Kaspersky, Bitdefender, and there is no better time to invest in them, than right now.

Bitdefender Antivirus Plus

Lots of things are annotated as "Plus" these days, but with the Bitdefender Antivirus Plus, it actually does come with that little bit extra. It's an excellent antivirus package filled with lots of security-centric features, such as password management, security for online transactions, ransomware protection, and also a VPN.

All that would normally set you back £39.99, per year, but it's available for £12, a 70% discount, and £28 saving. This is just for one year and the deal ends on Friday 26 November.

Get it here

McAfee Total Protection

When antivirus giant McAfee says "total" it means it; the company's Total Protection software takes care of all your devices - phone, tablet, laptop, and PC - and secures your data. This includes cross-platform password management, VPN protection, identity monitoring, identity theft insurance, and much more.

This truly comprehensive package is available for just £27.49, per year, for two years until 26 November. Normally it's 70% more at £89.99 per year.

Get it here

Kaspersky Total Security

When it comes to picking the right antivirus package, it's often the extras that seal the deal. Some products include antivirus, firewall protection, spam filters, parental controls, and not a lot else. Then there are others, such as Kaspersky Total Security which comes with top extras like file encryption, backup systems, and enhanced parental controls. It comes with some features you never knew you needed, according to IT Pro's review.

For this very reason, it's quite an expensive suite, around £39.99 per year, but for one time only you can get it for £11.99 - a 70% discount.

Get it here

Kaspersky Security Cloud

Kaspersky, again, comes up trumps for security software deals, this time it's the Security Cloud suite. This offers everything Total Security does, but it also includes platform-specific protections the company calls "Adaptive security".

There are two editions of the suite - personal and family - and it is usually quite expensive. However, £49.99 per year is cut to just £14.99 per year until Friday 26 November.

Get it here

Avast Ultimate Security for Mac

Apple would like users to think that malware is only a problem for Android, but sadly it is also something for MacBook owners to worry about. Thankfully there is dedicated protection in the form of Avast Ultimate Security for Mac. This includes malware protection, a network security scanner, and a speedy installation.

Normally you'd need to pay £59.99 for such a suite, but Avast is offering 70% off for Black Friday, so it can be yours for just £24.99, for one year only.

Get it here

It turns out that Sweden isn't the only Nordic nation with a talent for efficiently packing a lot of functionality into a small space. That's proven by Finnish cybersecurity vendor F-Secure: its web-based portal lets you manage not just the Endpoint Protection package but the company’s entire portfolio of business security products. So if you’re already using an F-Secure cloud service – or if you plan to in the future – it could help you simplify administration.

We found the cloud side of things easy to set up. Once we’d created a central management account, we simply had to enter our Elements Endpoint Protection (EEP) subscription details, after which the service immediately appeared in the console. Other F-Secure services are enabled in the same manner, and can be accessed from the portal’s upper right menu button.

EEP offers protection for a good spread of endpoint types. Windows and Mac workstations are covered, as well as Windows, Linux and Citrix servers, plus iOS and Android mobile devices. Malware protection is provided on all of these platforms, with F-Secure’s software analysing file contents, monitoring system change attempts and keeping an eye on program behaviour. EEP also offers patch management, web content security and removable device controls.

For the broadest possible security, you can move up to an EEP Premium subscription; this increases the per-device cost to £32 exc VAT, but adds application controls and dedicated ransomware protection.

The EEP console dashboard presents colour-coded charts for computers, patches and mobiles so you can instantly see your protection status. A table below lists any alerts and errors, with a link next to each that takes you to the relevant page for more detail. You can switch to the devices page for an overview of protected machines – and if one of your systems is infected, you can isolate it with a click, blocking all network access so it can’t do any harm. Once the system has been disinfected you can send an unblock command to remotely restore access.

This is also where you can invite users to install the EEP agent. Messages are sent by email, and include an agent download link for the appropriate platform; on Windows and macOS this takes around five minutes to install and connect to the EEP portal. On Android and iOS, users simply need to download the Android or iOS apps and log in using the pre-generated credentials in their email.

After installation, all client machines are set up with a default protection profile, which enables malware scanning, automatic quarantine actions and browsing protection. For tailor-made protection, you can create your own profiles, which define real-time scanning options, permit users to run manual scans, determine when automatic updates occur and schedule regular system scans. Web protection options include reputation-based web page scanning, content control with a list of 32 URL categories you can block or allow, and an optional browser plug-in that shows link reputations next to search results.

For mobile devices, profiles can also enable the F-Secure VPN service. There’s nothing users need to do to enable this: once the app is loaded, it creates a VPN connection to the nearest concentrator and applies the profile’s browsing controls. Protection against malicious websites and tracking cookies is included, too.

As for reporting, tabs in the portal show protection status, security events and infections. One-click menus at the top of each category send summary reports to administrators, and you can choose to issue email alerts to multiple users when infections are detected.

F-Secure Elements Endpoint Protection is a good choice for SMBs seeking easy protection: its cloud portal makes for simple management, and it’s easy to deploy a wide range of security services across all the device types you’re likely to be using.

McAfee’s an old hand at anti-malware, and it’s become a little less bloated in recent years. Despite the 2020 sell-off of the enterprise security site of the business, the consumer anti-malware division continues as a publicly traded company, with former owner Intel still holding a 49% stake.

You get a lot of features packed into McAfee Total Protection, but they’re not always the ones you’d expect. Although McAfee’s malware defence engine includes components designed to spot the telltale behaviour of ransomware attempting to encrypt your personal files, you don’t get any direct control over this as a user.

Unlike many rivals, you can’t designate specific directories for the software to monitor for and block unauthorised changes to. However, handling ransomware threats in-engine as zero-days when detected by McAfee’s behavioural analysis is a less obtrusive approach. Similarly, there’s no dedicated webcam protection module, although McAfee’s heuristic malware detection engine watches out for potential device hijacking.

Total Protection helpfully includes a dedicated firewall with a clean and pleasant interface, so you won’t have to use the Microsoft Defender Firewall’s creaky configuration UI. Also included are a vulnerability scanner to help you keep on top of required application updates, an “app boost” performance optimiser, a secure file shredder, an encrypted vault for your most sensitive data, and a “web boost” tool that prevents irritants such as auto-playing videos in chrome.

Silent detection is enabled by default to ensure that you’re not interrupted while gaming or watching videos at full screen, although the setting in question is buried in the settings menus, rather than being placed in the main interface.

You also get a copy of the McAfee True Key password manager thrown in for free, but you can do better with rivals such as Bitwarden. Family tier subscriptions include the Safe Family parental control and tracking toolkit.

In SE Labs’ latest home antivirus test, McAfee got a 100% total protection rating, meaning that it blocked all malicious software and didn’t falsely identify any benign programs as malicious or potentially unwanted.

In AV Comparatives’ most recent real-world protection test, it blocked 99.7% of malware, in common with most of its rivals, with 2 false positive identifications of legitimate software.

And it defended against 100% of malware in three of AV-Tests most recent four rounds of testing. McAfee's engine breezed through the reference malware sample set in two successive months, but only protected against all threats in August’s real-world test; in July, like a number of its rivals, it was caught out by a couple of malware exposures, but still blocked 99.3% of threats, with a single false positive. That’s only slightly less accurate than Microsoft Defender.

AV-Test’s performance data from the same period highlights a couple of minor impacts on system performance and responsiveness, however. There was a noticeable slowdown when loading websites compared to Microsoft Defender and while McAfee’s impact on software installation times was a little less pronounced than Defenders’, it was still significant compared to most rivals.

A one device, one year Total Protection account costs £29.99 for the first year and renews at £59.99 when bought from the McAfee website. The company was recently the subject of a CMA ruling finding its auto-renewal practices to be unfair, and it now more clearly highlights that its subscriptions auto-renew at a higher price and makes it easier to opt out. Renewals are still significantly more expensive than the first year’s subscription, though - more than double in the case of a ten device account.

However, as is often the case, the official price isn’t the same as the real price. A one-year, three-device key for McAfee Total Protection 2021 currently costs £11.99 from Amazon, just over a third as much as the standard introductory price for a single device, let alone the auto-renewing subscription fee.

McAfee provides some auto-renewal bonuses, notably access to the company’s Safe Connect VPN service and a money-back protection guarantee. However, even for fans of the product, this isn’t really enough added value to justify auto-renewal costs versus buying a much cheaper key elsewhere when it’s time to renew.

Total Protection does an adequate but not astonishing job. If you’re in the market for new malware protection, Kaspersky Internet Security is a better choice right now.

Finland’s F-Secure Safe has most of the features you’d want from an antivirus suite for home or home office use, with the addition of a particularly solid set of parental controls and content filtering tools to replace those that come built into Windows 10 and 11. These can be activated immediately at install time by specifying that you’re setting up an account for a child, and allow you to set up time limits, as well as web filtering, but don’t include app restrictions.

You get the expected - and vital - real-time malware protection as well as various on-demand and scheduled scan options. Although it doesn’t have as many dedicated options here as some rivals, a Full Scan covers everything you’ll need, including the boot sector.

Other features are pretty standard: Known-malicious websites are blocked by default, with the option of also blocking sites deemed to be suspicious. Additional security features are available via browser extensions for Firefox, Edge and Chrome, including a secure banking tool and a site reputation checker for search engine results on Google, Bing, Yahoo, and DuckDuckGo.

F-Secure doesn’t have all that many features that you can directly control or interact with. DeepGuard leans on the F-Secure cloud to only allow the installation of applications that it knows to be safe. This helps to keep malware from installing itself, but can throw up false positive identifications of legitimate software as potential threats. Fortunately, this is relatively rare and you can easily unblock anything you do want via the Tools page in the F-Secure client.

F-Secure doesn’t get as much regular attention from testing houses as some of its rivals. Consequently, this review is based on data from AV-Test and SE Labs only. Although F-Secure scored 100% in one real-world malware exposure test set and both reference set scanning tests from AV-Test, it - like many other malware detection engines - experienced a blip in July’s real-world tests, giving it a protection rate of 99.3%. It only threw up a single false positive, however.

SE Labs last tested F-Secure Safe in the first quarter of 2021, when it was solidly out-performed by Microsoft Defender. Kaspersky, McAfee and Avast also had better protection and total accuracy ratings. F-Secure had a protection rate of 96% and allowed the installation of 97% of legitimate software without false positive alerts, giving it an SE Labs total protection score of 96%.

AV-Test’s performance data shows us that F-Secure Safe has a low impact on system performance. It compares particularly well to Microsoft Defender when it comes to installation times for new software on low-performance PCs, and has less of an impact on website loading times than rival Kaspersky Internet Security.

Although F-Secure doesn’t always get perfect malware protection test scores, it’s nonetheless effective enough to provide solid defense against the kind of online threats you’ll encounter day-to-day. It has a decent range of features, but lacks dedicated webcam protection and has no firewall, so you’re still left wrangling the Microsoft Defender firewall’s rather dated interface.

While the product’s £59.99 (inc VAT) full price - the one you get on renewal - is fairly typical, its reduced first-year subscription fee of £39.99 is higher than that of many rivals, including those with more features. For that matter, Kaspersky Internet Security costs £34.99 after your first year. However, as with much antivirus software, Safe is available for much less if you buy a subscription key from either an online or bricks-and-mortar shop - a one year, one device subscription costs as little as £19.35 on Amazon. F-Secure also goes out of its way to highlight and make it easy to opt out of automatic renewal fees, which we welcomed.

Between protection and features, while Safe does what it needs to, it doesn’t stand out from the crowd, or even from your operating system’s integrated default option. If you’re looking for paid-for antivirus, Kaspersky Internet Security has more features and a lower introductory price.

Kaspersky Internet Security is a long-standing entry in our antivirus awards list, and its performance this time around hasn’t disappointed. We’ve reviewed the Windows version, running under Windows 10, but you can use your Kaspersky licenses to protect any combination of Windows, macOS, Android and iOS devices.

As well as the expected real-time malware detection and schedule scans, KIS provides a useful selection of features. There’s a browser protection module, ransomware defense that prevents unauthorized changes from being made to selected directories, private browsing and ad blocking, webcam protection, an interruption-free gaming mode, and online monitoring to check the protection status of all devices associated with your Kaserpersky account. Unusually for an antivirus suite in this price range, Kaspersky Internet Security also includes a fully-featured firewall.

You also get the free version of Kaspersky’s Secure Connection VPN, with a 300MB per day bandwidth cap, installed as a standalone utility. The other standalone components are an optional free subscription to Kaspersky Password Manager, and the free Safe Kids parental controls. None of these stand out against the market leaders in their sectors, however. As they aren’t really integrated into the KIS client, you won’t feel their absence if you do away with them.

When it comes to the protection afforded by its anti-malware engine, you can’t go wrong with Kaspersky’s products. KIS netted perfect protection scores without a single false positive in the most recent tests by AV-Test and SE Labs. AV Comparatives’ July/August 2021 data shows that it blocked an impressive 99.70% of malware in real-world exposure tests, once again without any false positives. Not quite perfect, but an impressive performance however you cut it, matching that of Microsoft’s impressive integrated Defender.

Where Kaspersky provides a real advantage is in its interface and performance. KIS has been a great choice for minimal impact on system resources for years, and currently out-performs built-in Microsoft Defender Antivirus on Windows 10 PCs, notably when it comes to how long it takes to install software, although Kaspersky had a greater impact on website opening times.

Perhaps the best feature of Kaspersky Internet Security is the fantastic interface it provides for actually controlling it. While in practice, most of the same things KIS does can be achieved using Windows’ integrated tools, it’s just easier to do with Kaspersky.

Its firewall in particular is designed to be lived with and used, making it easy to add and edit rules, while the Microsoft Defender firewall remains comparatively unfriendly to work with. Application controls are also a welcome addition, although they tend to block unsigned software by default, requiring an exception to run.

Kaspersky Internet Security is pretty cost-effective, starting at £14.58 exc VAT for a one year, one device subscription from Kaspersky’s website. Further discounts are sometimes available, and you can buy packaged codes at physical and online shops at prices as low as £11 inc VAT.

Watch out for renewals, though - that single-user subscription goes up to £29.16 exc VAT on the second year, and your auto-renewing subscription is set up automatically if you buy your license via the official Kaspersky site. That’s still a decent price for 12 months of malware protection, but you should make sure you’re aware of it and that you want to renew automatically rather than buying codes elsewhere.

It’s also worth noting that, since 2017, some US businesses and both UK and UK government departments won’t allow their colleagues or contractors to run Kaspersky software on devices used for work. Kaspersky subsequently moved significant parts of its operation from Russia to Switzerland.

We’d prefer it if KIS put a little less emphasis on promoting Kaspersky’s other products after we’d already paid for this one, but that’s a minor complaint about an otherwise outstanding antivirus suite.

Kaspersky Internet Security is our favourite paid-for anti-malware solution, providing a great user interface and outstanding protection against malware and minimal impact on performance, improving even on Windows’ very credible integrated malware defence.

2020 was an unprecedented year for security teams amid the global health crisis. The threat landscape continues to evolve as malicious actors quickly adapt to the changing environment and are finding new ways to exploit your vulnerabilities. It is now more critical than ever to protect your workforce at the endpoint no matter where you are.

Legacy endpoint security tools have proven to be ineffective at preventing these sophisticated threats. It is time to consider a modern endpoint security solution to gain advantage over highly innovative attackers.

Download this eBook to gain insights into:

• 8 common endpoint security challenges and how they are solved by modernisation
• Benefits of modernising your endpoint security
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Organizations have forced IT teams into compromising security for business continuity, according to new research.

Seventy-six percent of IT teams admit security took a backseat to business continuity during the pandemic, according to HP Wolf Security’s new study, titled “Rebellions & Rejections Report.” The same percentage felt they’re in a no-win situation where they’re being told to lock down security while being pressured to create shortcuts to enable innovation. Nearly all IT teams (91%) felt pressured to compromise security if it benefitted business continuity, including 50% who described the pressure as “significant.”

The survey questioned adults in the US, UK, Mexico, Germany, Australia, Canada, and Japan who used to be office workers, and worked from home the same amount or more than before the pandemic. It also found 48% of office workers aged 18 to 24 years old viewed security tools as a hindrance, leading to 31% trying to bypass corporate security policies to get their work done.

Nearly half (48%) of office workers surveyed agreed that seemingly essential security measures result in a lot of wasted time – this rises to 64% among those aged 18 to 24 years old. Over half (54%) of 18- to 24-year-olds were more worried about meeting deadlines than exposing their organization to a data breach; 39% were unsure what their security policies say or didn’t know if they existed.

The report suggested an overall growth of apathy among younger workers.

The report found that because of this, 83% of IT teams believe the increase in home workers has created a “ticking time bomb” for a corporate network breach.

When asked about the type and significance of threats that businesses now face, 84% of IT teams saw ransomware as a significant or very significant risk. Other threats posed included unpatched vulnerabilities and firmware attacks on laptops (83%), data leakage (82%), account/device takeover (81%), targeted attacks and man-in-the-middle attacks (79%), internet of things (IoT) threats (77%), and printer firmware attacks (76%).

“CISOs are dealing with increasing volume, velocity and severity of attacks,” said Joanna Burkey, CISO at HP Inc. “Their teams are having to work around the clock to keep the business safe, while facilitating mass digital transformation with reduced visibility. Cybersecurity teams should no longer be burdened with the weight of securing the business solely on their shoulders, cybersecurity is an end-to-end discipline in which everyone needs to engage.”

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With the evolution of cloud-native CMS platforms, even more businesses can innovate and introduce personalised experiences they never thought possible.

Download this resource to learn how to choose and deploy a CMS that will deliver the best results for your business.

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McAfee’s security software hasn’t always wowed us in the past but, since parting company with Intel in 2017, it’s become a persuasive contender.

That’s partly to do with value. Total Protection is McAfee’s top-of-the-line offering and one of the most feature-packed security suites we’ve seen, yet you can get a three-PC package on Amazon for just £15 a year. The slightly leaner Internet Security suite can also be had for two quid less.

McAfee Total Protection review: Features

McAfee Total Protection keeps an active watch over your system and blocks viruses and other malicious items on access. It monitors web content, too, and the free browser extension for Chrome, Edge, Firefox and Internet Explorer will steer you away from dodgy websites.

Additional features include a custom firewall and access to McAfee’s True Key password manager across five devices. There’s also an automatic software updater, a simple network scanner that lets you inspect nearby LAN clients, and tools for encrypting or shredding sensitive files.

The optional App Boost component isn’t really a security feature but it can make your system feel more responsive by allocating extra system resources to foreground applications.

Also included is McAfee’s Safe Family parental control platform. This works across Windows, Android and iOS to track and block specific apps and online content, keep tabs on device location and even send you alerts when your kids enter or leave defined areas.

Most unusually, your McAfee subscription also includes a complete VPN service, with selectable servers in 23 locations around the world and no data caps. You can even set it to kick in automatically whenever you connect to a new network too – a very nice touch. The catch is that to use it you have to keep the automatic licence renewal option turned on. This could prove costly if you forget to cancel at the right time, as the price goes up significantly in the second year.

McAfee Total Protection review: Protection

McAfee’s malware engine is regularly put through its paces by both AV-Comparatives.org and AV-Test.org and, in the most recent tests carried out in the first half of 2021, Total Protection achieved a flawless 100% protection rating.

There’s a catch, though. While McAfee successfully blocked every nasty sample it was exposed to, it also wrongly flagged seven innocent items. That’s more than we’d like to see. Once you get into the habit of manually unblocking safe items, it becomes far more likely that you’ll end up unblocking something dangerous. By contrast, in the same test, F-Secure SAFE and Eset Internet Security made no mistakes at all.

McAfee Total Protection review: User interface

In the past, some McAfee products were burdened with a sluggish, overcomplicated front-end; thankfully, that’s now been completely overhauled. The current release of Total Protection is nicely responsive and neatly organised, with tabs along the top and sensibly labelled controls in the main pane.

It’s also one of the nimblest security suites around. In a range of different usage scenarios, AV-Comparatives.org and AV-Test.org reported it slowed down their test PCs by an average of 6.3%. That’s an excellent score; of the packages we’ve seen, only F-Secure SAFE did better, nosing ahead with 6.1%. Windows Defender meanwhile weighed in at a ponderous 12.5%.

Scanning is quite quick, too. McAfee Total Protection fully scanned an external hard disk containing 55GB of assorted data in well under two minutes. Again, it didn’t quite keep up with F-Secure SAFE, which whizzed through the test in 27 seconds, but many other suites took longer and Windows’ own scanner left us waiting around nearly ten minutes.

McAfee Total Protection review: Verdict

McAfee Total Protection partners slick and effective malware protection with a tempting array of genuinely useful add-ons. The fact that it can be had for such a low price makes it almost irresistible.

However, a worse than average false positive rate means you might need to be prepared to fish the odd file out of quarantine and, if you��re going to enable the VPN, make sure you set a reminder to cancel your subscription before you’re stung with a hefty renewal fee.

AVG is known for its basic, free antivirus tool, but when you can upgrade to the full version of its security suite for less than a quid a month, it’s tempting to at least look into what you get for the money.

For the price, it looks like a tempting upgrade. However, the extra features are of questionable value and there are plenty of things that this program won’t do: if you want all-round protection, you’re encouraged to buy additional AVG-branded products to fill in the gaps.

AVG Internet Security review: Features

If you’ve used AVG Free lately, you’ll be right at home with AVG Internet Security: it looks exactly the same, except that all the buttons are unlocked.

These give you access to various premium features. AVG Internet Security includes webcam protection, to ensure no-one can spy on you or listen in to your activity. It also features a custom firewall, and there’s a module specifically designed to block malicious remote desktop connections.

Then there are a few tools designed to protect sensitive data, including a secure file shredder and AVG’s innovative Sensitive Data Shield, which identifies documents containing information such as payment, tax or travel details, and blocks applications from accessing them without your say-so.

The price shown above covers a year-long subscription for a single PC, but there are also options that cover longer periods and more devices. Whichever you choose, it’s normally cheapest to buy from a third-party retailer such as Amazon, rather than AVG’s own website.

AVG Internet Security review: Protection

AVG Internet Security achieved a perfect 100% protection rating in the latest tests by AV-Comparatives.org and AV-Test.org. Obviously, that’s as good as you could ask for, but it doesn’t make AVG exceptional: several other products achieved the same score in recent tests, including the free edition of Avast, which isn’t surprising since the two suites use the same core antivirus engine. Come to that, Windows 10’s own built-in protections came tantalisingly close, with an average score of 99.97% across all of the two labs’ tests.

AVG also jumped the gun just a few times, registering three false positives during the tests. Avira, BullGuard, Eset, F-Secure, G-Data and Kaspersky all did better, wrongly flagging up fewer or no innocent files. Still, this isn’t a disastrous showing.

AVG Internet Security review: User interface

Across numerous performance tests, AVG Internet Security slowed down Windows performance by 8.5% on average. That’s not bad at all. The slickest security solution we’ve seen lately is the 2021 edition of F-Secure SAFE, and even that had an impact of 6.15%.

Overall, though, AVG Internet Security isn’t a terribly impressive package. The custom firewall seems pointless – there’s nothing wrong with the standard Windows one – and, while we like the idea of the Sensitive Data Shield, it didn’t work for us at all, failing to recognise or protect a text file containing our banking details and online password.

AVG also omits features found in other security suites such as a driver updater or a warning tool to alert you if your online credentials are leaked. Instead, these functions have been spun off into separate products and the AVG interface conveniently includes marketing links from which you can buy them. It’s not exactly in-your-face advertising, but it still feels a bit distasteful.

AVG Internet Security review: Verdict

Sadly, this paid package isn’t worth it. Even though the price is low, AVG Internet Security simply isn’t very good value. For sure, the underlying antivirus engine is great, but you can get that in the AVG Free Antivirus suite without paying a penny.

Conversely, if you’re willing to pay an annual subscription for internet security, check out something like McAfee or Norton, which do far more for a similar price.

Cloud security company iboss has launched three new features to its software-as-a-service (SaaS)-based network security platform, including a new remote browser isolation capability that protects native browsers on high-risk sites.

The remote browser isolation feature activates when users access sites the iboss security platform categorizes as high risk. The feature isolates web traffic between the user and that site using a remote session outside the user's native web browser.

The company said the remote browser isolation feature could secure access to sensitive data in services like Box, Dropbox, and Salesforce from unmanaged endpoints. It also lets users view files without downloading them.

iboss has extended its cloud access security broker (CASB) functionality with an application programming interface (API) that lets the service examine files stored in major cloud services.

This file-examination feature, which currently integrates with Box, Google, and Microsoft 365, generates a list of the files stored in each cloud service to give administrators a clear picture of what data users store on third-party cloud services. It also allows them to test the files for malware and ensure they comply with the platform's data loss prevention (DLP) settings, flagging the file and the user who stored it if there's a problem.

The third addition is a set of additional controls over cloud applications, including Azure, AWS EC2, and GitHub. Administrators can configure triggers to instigate events based on user actions, including blocking access to forbidden sites and applications. This product's CASB controls cover Google applications, including YouTube and Google Drive, and administrators can apply them on a per-user or per-group basis.

The iboss cloud platform secures user connections to cloud services, enabling them to connect directly via a cloud-based gateway rather than tunneling back to company headquarters via a VPN.

Avira Antivirus Pro makes a great first impression. The console opens with a swish graphic promising not only to look after your security, but to protect your privacy and boost system performance as well.

And, on the first count, it delivers. The raw rankings aren’t kind to Avira, placing it behind most other security suites we’ve seen recently – but that still represents an overall protection rating of 99.8%, including perfect 100% scores against AV-Test’s set of malware samples for February 2021. A score of two false positives isn’t bad, either: we’d have no hesitation in trusting it for everyday security.

Sadly, the privacy side of things is much less comprehensive. It’s initially exciting to see that the suite includes Avira’s Phantom VPN, but the service is limited to 1GB of data transfer per month, and doesn’t allow you to choose your own location, making it no better than any number of free alternatives. Upgrading to the full, unlimited version will set you back an additional £52 a year.

It’s a similar situation with the password manager. The version bundled with this suite can save unlimited passwords and works on multiple devices, but again it’s just the free edition. There’s also a Privacy settings module, which helpfully brings together a range of Windows options, but at the end of the day these are all tweaks that you can apply yourself.

That just leaves the Performance tab, and this is where Avira really drops the ball. From here you can clear out junk files and update any ageing device drivers, but clicking on almost any other function fires up a separate app called Avira System Speedup. This may initially come as a surprise because the installer doesn’t ask your permission to install this additional application. Irritation quickly follows, as it becomes apparent that to fully activate the features promised within the main Antivirus package, you need to buy a licence for System Speedup Pro, costing £22 a year.

In a free product, we might grit our teeth and overlook this type of deceptive presentation. But in a commercial suite costing £30 a year it’s downright obnoxious. We recommend that you opt for one of the several security solutions out there that are faster, provide better malware protection and treat the user a bit more respectfully.

Bitdefender Internet Security is a strong all-round security solution, with a broad set of supplementary features in addition to regular virus scanning. Indeed, the only thing you miss out on by choosing this edition rather than the more expensive Total Security package is a system tune-up module, which isn’t a security function anyway.

For those looking to squeeze the budget as far as possible, Bitdefender also offers a completely free antivirus tool, which includes only the core detection engine. The standard suite isn’t by any means expensive, however: it costs a reasonable £25 direct from the Bitdefender website and Amazon will sell you a three-device bundle for just £15 a year.

Bitdefender will actively spot and block any suspicious programs or activity on your system, and it guides you away from dangerous online content via plugins for Chrome and Firefox, plus Safari for Mac users. For sensitive transactions, the software will detect when you’re visiting a banking site or similar and offer to open it in Bitdefender’s custom Safepay browser, to defeat most spyware and other attacks.

There’s also an ingenious ransomware remediation module, provided as an extra line of defence just in case something slips past the scanner. It doesn’t prevent apps from writing to your personal folders – since that could interfere with the proper functioning of legitimate software – but instead keeps dynamic backups of modified files, which can be instantly restored as needed.

The suite also offers specific protections for webcams and microphones, ensuring criminals can’t spy on, or listen into, your personal life. And a versatile parental control service links you to a central web management portal, from which you can browse and restrict kids’ screen time and app usage across all platforms. You can even track their location if you’ve installed the companion app on their Android or iOS smartphone.

The cherry on top is Bitdefender’s own-brand VPN service but this is quite limited, as it will only protect up to 200MB of data a day. That’s fine for securely checking in with a message board, but you won’t be able to use it to keep all your online activity private. You can’t select a server location either, so it won’t help you get around geographical restrictions.

Bitdefender is undeniably effective. In malware tests carried out in the first half of 2021 Bitdefender achieved perfect 100% protection ratings from both AV-Comparatives.org and AV-Test.org. That’s reassuring but, for context, note that numerous other suites achieved the same score, including the Windows Defender tool that’s built into Windows 10.

And Bitdefender blotted its copybook a little when it came to false positives. On five separate occasions it made the wrong call, blocking a legitimate program or file.

That’s nowhere near as bad as Norton 360 or Malwarebytes Premium, which registered 22 and 50 false positives respectively, but it still casts a tiny shadow of doubt over Bitdefender’s judgement; rival packages F-Secure SAFE and Eset Internet Security didn’t make any mistakes at all.

It’s good to know what your security software is doing, but sometimes you don’t want to be interrupted. Bitdefender addresses this with a smart profile system, which can automatically switch between silent and interactive operation depending on whether you’re working, gaming, using public Wi-Fi and so forth.

If you want to customise Bitdefender’s behaviour, the interface is logically laid out, with distinctive icons and clear labelling explaining what everything does.

The one area where Bitdefender doesn’t excel is speed. It took around five minutes to fully scan 55GB of data on an external hard disk, while suites from F-Secure, Trend Micro and Eset all completed the task in under a minute. It’s a tiny bit behind the pace in day-to-day use, too. The independent testing labs found it slowed down Windows operations by an average of 10.2%. Still, that’s better than Windows Defender, which had an impact of 12.5%.

Two things hold Bitdefender Internet Security back from the winner’s podium – it isn’t as speedy as other suites and its false positive rate isn’t quite as reassuring, either.

Those aren’t necessarily deal-breakers, however. They’re issues you might well be able to live with. At the end of the day, it’s a highly capable security suite and, if you buy from Amazon, it’s great value, too.

If you don’t want to pay for malware protection, there are several free options. The most obvious is what’s already built into Windows 10, but big names such as Bitdefender and Kaspersky also offer free versions. In our view, however, Avast’s is the best free offering, providing strong protection and a feature set that goes beyond its rivals.

It’s not quite impeccable: during AV-Comparatives’ malware tests, Avast dropped the ball just once. If our protection scores were extended to three decimal places, it would come away with an overall rating of 99.998%. That’s still an excellent result, and better than you can expect from the free editions of Avira or Malwarebytes – or indeed Microsoft Defender. There’s a good range of scanning and notification options too, meaning you can tweak Avast’s behaviour to suit your preferences.

Avast also missed out on a clean sheet when it came to false positives, erroneously sounding the alarm three times during the test. Again, though, that’s better than Windows’ built-in scanner fared, and a mile ahead of paid-for suites from Malwarebytes and Norton.

Beyond regular malware-blocking duties, Avast wins credit for its breadth of additional protections. As soon as you install it, Avast inspects your browser for suspect extensions, and scans your installed applications to spot any that might be in need of security updates. If you want Avast to automatically fetch and apply the patches, you’ll need to upgrade to the Premium package, but the warnings alone provide valuable insight that other packages miss.

Then there’s the Wi-Fi scanner, which sniffs out all other devices on your wireless network to help you spot any intruders and warns you if it detects any insecure passwords or other vulnerabilities that could be exploited by an attacker. Again, the software can’t fix such issues, but it can at least indicate where you need to shore up your defences.

The Ransomware Shield, meanwhile, does the same job as Windows’ built-in Controlled Folder Access feature, but in a more user-friendly way. When an untrusted program tries to write to a protected location, Avast immediately flings up a requester that lets you block or approve the app with a click, rather than requiring you to rummage around in the settings.

Finally, the Hack Alert feature extends protection outside of your own network by monitoring releases of leaked or hacked data from third-party servers. If any credentials connected to your email address are found to have been compromised then you’ll be warned immediately, giving you a chance to change your password before someone else does. Have I Been Pwned offers the same free service, but it’s handy to have the function built into your security software – and it works continually in the background.

As a rule, the catch with free software is the upsell. We were irked but not entirely shocked when, even before the program had launched for the first time, the installer popped up a warning that the firewall and phishing protection modules weren’t enabled. Predictably enough, clicking “Resolve all” takes you to a purchasing page, where you’re invited to pay up for Avast Premium Security.

Yet it’s hard to feel too annoyed by this. The premium subscription isn’t offensively expensive – the two-year option works out to £23 per annum – and once you start using the program proper, there’s very little in the way of pushy marketing. Yes, the interface is laden with buttons for features that aren’t included in this free edition, but they’re all clearly marked with little orange padlock icons, so you never feel deceived. The worst we can really say is that all the icons clutter up the front-end a bit.

The other potential area of concern is performance, and carrying out a full scan of our test folder proved a slow business, dragging on for more than a quarter of an hour. In everyday use, however, you’re likely to rely upon on-access scanning, and here Avast ticks along smoothly. Across AV-Test and AV-Comparatives’ tests, system speed with Avast Antivirus Free averaged 91.9% of “bare metal” performance, stacking up incredibly well against competitors.

When you download a free antivirus package, you know you’re not going to get the kitchen sink. Even so, Avast brings together a broad range of useful security tools – and when it comes to the job of stopping viruses, it performs very creditably. Perhaps most pleasingly, while the advertising element is certainly there, we never found it obnoxious. All of this makes Avast our favourite free solution.

The focus of security has shifted from the network to endpoints, in large part because of the switch to remote working during the pandemic. To cope with this situation and keep employees secure wherever they might be working from, a company needs the best possible defenses on its side. It needs HP Wolf Security.

The core of HP Wolf Security is that it is based at the hardware level on HP devices. The HP Endpoint Security Controller is the foundation of the stack. This is a physically isolated and cryptographically protected microcontroller that sits below the level of the operating system and orchestrates protective features as a secure root-of-trust.

The HP Endpoint Security Controller provides the hardware enforcement for HP BIOSphere, HP Sure Start, HP Sure Run, and HP Sure Recover. HP BIOSphere protects the BIOS as it starts the system hardware components and loads firmware. It prevents attacks so that this stage of the system initialization is secure. HP Sure Start works with BIOSphere to ensure the BIOS has loaded securely. In tandem with the HP Endpoint Security Controller, HP Sure Start can replace the BIOS with a clean version if it has been compromised. It also continually monitors and repairs damage from malware and rootkits, reducing the possibility of corruption. The latest Gen6 of HP Sure Start also protects against pre-boot direct attacks on system memory.

HP Sure Run keeps critical processes operational, preventing malware from shutting these down. Again, the HP Endpoint Security Controller helps monitor system routines, so Sure Run can alert users or the IT department if any changes occur, as well as restart processes automatically. HP Sure Run can also enforce policies, and the software agent itself can be reinstalled automatically if malware tries to stop it.

Another HP Wolf Security technology with powerful capabilities for reinstating a user’s computing environment is HP Sure Recover. This also works at the hardware level and allows machines to be recovered with the latest image using only a network connection. Using Embedded Reimaging***, the user can also reinstall their operating system and drivers from local storage without assistance from the IT department. This works even if the primary drive has been completely erased.

Speaking of erasing drives, HP Wolf’s Secure Erase is a BIOS-level deletion system that permanently erases sensitive information on hard drives and SSDs, so it can never be reinstated. This means storage devices can be disposed of safely without the need to physically destroy them. Select HP devices can also integrate certified self-encrypting drives that secure data with hardware-based encryption that keeps the files safe even if the drive is removed from the device.

Working remotely usually entails accessing multiple resources via browsers and cloud-based resources. This is a primary route of attack for cyberthreats. HP Wolf integrates Sure Click, which employs micro-virtualization technology developed in collaboration with Bromium and now owned by HP. This creates secure browsing where downloaded documents (as well as web content) are isolated within a micro-virtual machine (micro-VM). The result is that any malware infesting a document is contained in the micro-VM and cannot access any wider systems. Untrusted documents can even be edited and saved safely with the micro-VM.

Malware attacks are constantly evolving, which makes traditional signature-based detection ineffective. HP Wolf’s Sure Sense uses AI and deep learning to detect zero-day attacks in real time as they emerge. Files are scanned and new threats recognized by their behavior rather than their code. This protects against ransomware, exploits, spyware and other executable threats in tandem with HP Sure Run. Despite these powerful abilities, the algorithms used by HP Sure Sense only take 1% of system resources, producing a negligible effect on usability.

HP Wolf Security provides a host of facilities to keep devices safe for remote workers without on-site access to IT administration. But it also provides tools to help the IT department deliver the support workers need at a distance. HP Client Security Manager provides hardware authentication to configure and control security features such as HP Sure Run and HP Sure Recover. HP Sure Admin provides local and remote management for BIOS settings based on strong public key cryptography eliminating the need for a BIOS password.

HP devices are protected from physical forms of attack as well. HP Sure View narrows the angle of view of the screen at the touch of a button, to make it much harder for “shoulder surfers” to see the screen of a laptop being used in a public place, unless they are sitting right in front of it. HP Tamper Lock protects against attackers who try to circumvent system security by physically opening a device. It detects this tampering and notifies the user and IT department, with the possibility to initiate protective measurements upon detection.

All these facilities together provide an unprecedented level of safety for employees working remotely, as well as robust tools to help the IT department administer their systems from a distance. This is why you need HP devices with the Wolf on your side, to protect your employees against the new threats of remote work.

Learn more about HP Wolf

From the maker of the world’s most secure PCs* and Printers**, HP Wolf Security is a new breed of endpoint security. HP’s portfolio of hardware-enforced security and endpoint-focused security services are designed to help organizations safeguard PCs, printers, and people from circling cyber predators. HP Wolf Security*** provides comprehensive endpoint protection and resiliency that starts at the hardware level and extends across software and services. For more information, visit www.hp.com/wolf

*Based on HP’s unique and comprehensive security capabilities at no additional cost among vendors on HP Elite PCs with Windows and 8th Gen and higher Intel® processors or AMD Ryzen™ 4000 processors and higher; HP ProDesk 600 G6 with Intel® 10th Gen and higher processors; and HP ProBook 600 with AMD Ryzen™ 4000 or Intel® 11th Gen processors and higher.

**HP’s most advanced embedded security features are available on HP Enterprise and HP Managed devices with HP FutureSmart firmware 4.5 or above. Claim based on HP review of 2021 published features of competitive in-class printers. Only HP offers a combination of security features to automatically detect, stop, and recover from attacks with a self-healing reboot, in alignment with NIST SP 800-193 guidelines for device cyber resiliency. For a list of compatible products, visit: hp.com/go/PrintersThatProtect. For more information, visit: hp.com/go/PrinterSecurityClaims.

***HP Security is now HP Wolf Security. Security features vary by platform, please see product data sheet for details.

Remote workers enjoy few of the security benefits of office workers. The home environment offers one level of threat, but when remote workers are outside the home, the level goes up considerably. Now that a high percentage of employees are likely to remain remote workers post pandemic, or at least follow a more flexible work pattern, it is essential to keep these employees as secure as those that return to the office. Here are some of the dangers they will encounter, and how they can be mitigated.

The first thing to consider is that the focus of security changes whether the worker is at home or in a public space. Whereas an office worker could be protected using primarily network-based security provisions, the remote worker does not have that protective layer. The lack of a firewall means that they will be even more reliant on the built-in security and security applications of the computer or printer they are using. The goal is therefore to keep the main work system, most likely a laptop, as secure as possible. Research by YouGov has shown that 91% of IT decision makers believe endpoint security is now at least as important as network security.

The most obvious danger for a remote worker outside the home is when their laptop is physically stolen. This will not only interfere with their ability to carry on working, but risks the data held on the device being compromised, and that device could even be used to gain access to other corporate systems. Aside from being careful with their laptop, employees can be protected by having a more secure system, starting with biometrics. Windows Hello biometric sign-in, enabled on HP devices equipped with HP Wolf Security, is a great place to start.

While this can protect them from unlocking the device, there are still opportunities for thieves to get data inside by dismantling it. HP TamperLock provides a general protection mechanism against all classes of physical attacks that involve removal of the system cover, via a cover removal sensor that detects and locks down a system that is disassembled. This is also where the remote management capabilities of HP Wolf Security could be used to take control of the device when it is turned on. And if the laptop’s hard drive has been encrypted, which HP devices support, you can’t access any data – even if a drive is removed from its host system.

There are further dangers from employees using work-provided laptops in a variety of locations and scenarios. Spoofed public Wi-Fi can catch people off guard, for example. This is where a rogue access point is created in a public Wi-Fi spot with the same SSID as the legitimate one, fooling the user into connecting to the wrong network. Employees may also use their laptops for non-work-related activities. YouGov research has shown that 55% of employees opened personal email attachments or web pages on their work systems, 27% played games, and 36% watched online streaming video services. All these activities have been targets for attack during the pandemic. It would be unreasonable and probably impossible to prevent employees from engaging in all these things on work systems. Instead, the device itself should help prevent them.

This is where the many-layered approach of HP Wolf Security comes in. Enabled systems incorporate the HP Endpoint Security Controller, which manages a host of features that make a remote worker’s laptop more resilient and able to contain these threats. This begins with HP Sure Start, which protects against malicious code that tries to operate beneath the level of the operating system to infect the computer’s firmware. As the BIOS is loaded, it is checked for compromises and, if any are found, a clean BIOS version is loaded instead. Next comes HP Sure Run, which stops malware from shutting down critical processes.

So much of our work is now performed online via websites. Clever cyber-criminals can take advantage of this by either infecting an existing website or cloning it with a different URL. This is where HP Sure Click Enterprise can provide protection. Files, applications, and web pages are opened inside micro virtual machine containers. If any of these try to launch malware, it will be isolated to this container, which keeps the employee’s computer and data secure. Meanwhile, the malware can be analyzed within the container to strengthen resiliency.

Another issue with cyberthreats is that they are continuously evolving. The traditional method of looking for the signatures of known malicious code will by its very nature always be behind this curve. To combat this, HP Sure Sense employs deep learning and AI to recognize new threats as they emerge in real time, allowing preventative measures to be taken proactively.

Not all threats are technological, either. Employees working remotely in a café, train or other public space can fall foul of “shoulder surfers” peeking at their laptop screen, a process also known as “visual hacking”. This can be mitigated with a laptop screen that has a narrow angle of view. HP Sure View provides the perfect solution. The most recent generation of HP Sure View (HP Sure View Reflect) enables less than 1.5% of a user’s screen to be visible at a 45-degree angle. But all generations of HP Sure View seriously reduce viewing from any angle, and the protection can be toggled at the push of a button so you only have it when you need it.

Of course, there is always the possibility that an employee’s device gets damaged accidentally. Spilling coffee on your laptop is an occupational hazard of working in cafes, for example. HP Sure Recover empowers an employee to restore their entire operating system with just a network connection available, without the need for advanced IT skills.

Although remote workers can be more susceptible to security perils, the right focus on the built-in security of the employee’s laptop endpoint can ensure they remain safe. Even if the environment is as insecure as a public Wi-Fi network in a café, deploying HP Wolf Security-enabled devices repels cyberthreats at every level, so remote work can be both secure and productive.

Learn more about HP Wolf

From the maker of the world’s most secure PCs* and Printers**, HP Wolf Security is a new breed*** of endpoint security. HP’s portfolio of hardware-enforced security and endpoint-focused security services are designed to help organizations safeguard PCs, printers, and people from circling cyber predators. HP Wolf Security provides comprehensive endpoint protection and resiliency that starts at the hardware level and extends across software and services. For more information, visit www.hp.com/wolf

*Based on HP’s unique and comprehensive security capabilities at no additional cost among vendors on HP Elite PCs with Windows and 8th Gen and higher Intel® processors or AMD Ryzen™ 4000 processors and higher; HP ProDesk 600 G6 with Intel® 10th Gen and higher processors; and HP ProBook 600 with AMD Ryzen™ 4000 or Intel® 11th Gen processors and higher.

**HP’s most advanced embedded security features are available on HP Enterprise and HP Managed devices with HP FutureSmart firmware 4.5 or above. Claim based on HP review of 2021 published features of competitive in-class printers. Only HP offers a combination of security features to automatically detect, stop, and recover from attacks with a self-healing reboot, in alignment with NIST SP 800-193 guidelines for device cyber resiliency. For a list of compatible products, visit: hp.com/go/PrintersThatProtect. For more information, visit: hp.com/go/PrinterSecurityClaims.

***HP Security is now HP Wolf Security. Security features vary by platform, please see product data sheet for details.

Ever since computers became connected to public networks they have been under threat from external attack. But at least when most employees were working on premises, companies had considerable control over what was allowed into the internal network. Now, in the post-COVID world, it looks like many more workers will be operating remotely, making endpoint security much more important than ever before.

Many employees around the world have spent a year forced to operate from home, and many will continue to do so after the pandemic has abated. Global Workplace Analytics, for example, predicts that 25%-30% of employees will still be working multiple days a week from home by the end of 2021. If there is anything positive that can be taken from COVID, it is that remote working can be productive.

But there has been an inevitable downside of the mass adoption of remote working. Cybercriminals have realized that remote workers are no longer as well protected as on-premises office workers. The FBI had reported that complaints of cybercrime had already increased fourfold by April 2020 compared to prior months, and Interpol had already registered a huge increase in cybercrime during the pandemic by August 2020. This trend has continued since then, with pandemic and vaccination fears providing fertile ground for all manner of phishing attacks. According to research by YouGov, 54% of IT decision makers have seen a higher number of phishing attacks, and 45% saw evidence of printers being compromised as attack points.

A major problem is how the line is blurred between work and personal lives when working from home. According to YouGov research, 76% of office workers felt this blurring of their lives, 46% used their work laptop for personal activities, and 30% even let someone else use their work device – perhaps a child doing schoolwork from home. While the employee might be conscientious about avoiding phishing attacks, other family members won’t be, and all it takes is one lapse and a system could be compromised. You can’t put all the blame on employees working from home for this, though. Instead, it puts the onus on the device they are using itself. Research by YouGov has shown that 91% of IT decision makers believe endpoint security is at least as important as network security.

For example, once a system used for work has been infected, it can be used to mount attacks on other employees within the company. The email contacts address book could be accessed and phishing emails sent from the infected system. Other employees will be far more susceptible if they think messages are coming from a legitimate source within the company, which could then mean the whole workforce becomes infected, enabling a mass ransomware attack. Printers could also be susceptible to internal attack once cyber-criminals have access to computers that provide remote access.

This is where a comprehensive solution like HP Wolf Security can pay huge dividends. HP Wolf Security provides multiple layers of hardware-enforced security that operates below the level of the operating system, within the operating system, and above that with applications. The newly integrated HP Wolf Security portfolio is categorized by:

• HP Wolf Security for Home* includes a set of built-in security features for select consumer PCs as well as HP Wolf Essential Security software and services. HP Wolf Essential Security is included on select home printers.
• HP Wolf Security for Business** includes a portfolio of hardware-enforced security features, included with every business PC purchase, designed for businesses of all sizes.
• HP Wolf Pro Security, devices, software and services† for small to mid-sized businesses.
• HP Wolf Enterprise Security, devices, software and services for enterprises and government.††

These automated systems drastically reduce the attack surfaces available to cyber-criminals, presenting far fewer opportunities for them to compromise the systems used by remote workers.

HP Wolf Security isn’t just about the endpoints on their own, but how they fit into a secure ecosystem. With a suite of remote worker systems enabled by HP Wolf Pro or Enterprise Security, IT managers can benefit from powerful analytical and heuristic predictive tools, on top of device-level protection. Threats like ransomware code will be isolated and contained before they deploy within a micro-virtual machine container. While isolated, they do no harm to the endpoint, but can run their course so the full malware kill-chain can be shared with other devices – further hardening the infrastructure and reducing the overall attack surface. Whether self-managed or fully managed, HP Wolf Security can provide the expertise to identify risks and improve an organization’s security position. These facilities include malware prevention, threat containment, and identity protection. With these capabilities on remote worker endpoint systems, they can operate with as much safety as employees in the office.

There will be a lot more employees working from home post pandemic, and that has potential to be a positive change. Employees can more easily fit work and life together, without any noticeable drop in productivity. With the right computing safety precautions, such as HP Wolf Security, one of the biggest downsides of remote working can be mitigated. That way, this brave new world of more flexible working can be a win-win for employer and employee alike.

Learn more about HP Wolf

From the maker of the world’s most secure PCs‡ and Printers‡‡, HP Wolf Security is a new breed§ of endpoint security. HP’s portfolio of hardware-enforced security and endpoint-focused security services are designed to help organizations safeguard PCs, printers, and people from circling cyber predators. HP Wolf Security provides comprehensive endpoint protection and resiliency that starts at the hardware level and extends across software and services. For more information, visit www.hp.com/wolf

*HP Wolf Security for Home is planned to be available for select HP Consumer PCs in Spring 2022 and HP Wolf Essential Security Services will be sold separately.

**HP Wolf Security for Business requires Windows 10, includes various HP security features and is available on HP Pro, Elite and Workstation products. See product details for included security features and OS requirement.

†HP Wolf Pro Security Service is sold separately. For full system requirements, please visit http://www.hpdaas.com/requirements. HP services are governed by the applicable HP terms and conditions of service provided or indicated to Customer at the time of purchase. Customer may have additional statutory rights according to applicable local laws, and such rights are not in any way affected by the HP terms and conditions of service, or the HP Limited Warranty provided with your HP Product. For full system requirements, please visit www.hpdaas.com/requirements

HP Wolf Pro Security is included on select pro level printers.

††HP Wolf Enterprise Security is an optional service and may include offerings such as HP Sure Click Enterprise and HP Sure Access Enterprise. HP Sure Click Enterprise requires Windows 8 or 10 and Microsoft Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Chromium or Firefox are supported. Supported attachments include Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint) and PDF files, when Microsoft Office or Adobe Acrobat are installed.

HP Wolf Enterprise Security is included on select enterprise level printers.

‡Based on HP’s unique and comprehensive security capabilities at no additional cost among vendors on HP Elite PCs with Windows and 8th Gen and higher Intel® processors or AMD Ryzen™ 4000 processors and higher; HP ProDesk 600 G6 with Intel® 10th Gen and higher processors; and HP ProBook 600 with AMD Ryzen™ 4000 or Intel® 11th Gen processors and higher.

‡‡HP’s most advanced embedded security features are available on HP Enterprise and HP Managed devices with HP FutureSmart firmware 4.5 or above. Claim based on HP review of 2021 published features of competitive in-class printers. Only HP offers a combination of security features to automatically detect, stop, and recover from attacks with a self-healing reboot, in alignment with NIST SP 800-193 guidelines for device cyber resiliency. For a list of compatible products, visit: hp.com/go/PrintersThatProtect. For more information, visit: hp.com/go/PrinterSecurityClaims.

§HP Security is now HP Wolf Security. Security features vary by platform, please see product data sheet for details.

1Password has a good reputation among password managers, but is perhaps best known for its Travel Mode, which temporarily removes any vaults that haven’t been marked safe for travel from your accounts. This is particularly useful for organisations whose staff regularly do business in countries with strict border policies that allow officials to access travellers' devices, such as the United States.

1Password’s business subscriptions allow travel mode to be enabled for staff by administrators, who can also define travel-safe password vaults.

1Password Business review: Client features

1Password conveniently positions a link to an app download page at the bottom left of its web-based vault interface, and you’ll be offered clients for macOS, Windows, iOS, Android and whatever browser you happen to be using at the time.

Although it’s not offered on the download page, there is also a Linux desktop client, currently in beta but nonetheless functional. There’s also a command-line tool for ease of scripting and automation on all three major desktop operating systems.

You’ll find more predefined categories for stored items than many other password managers, and while this doesn’t make for any real functional difference, it’s helpful to be reminded that you can, in fact, use your business password manager to make sure your team has all their software license keys stored somewhere safe, for example.

As you’d expect, you can save notes, personal details, credit cards and important documents, as well as passwords. Everyone in your Team gets 1GB of storage, increasing to 5GB for Business users.

Whether you access it via mobile, desktop, web or browser plug-in, 1Password gives each user easy access to both Private and Shared vaults, as well as alerting them to any issues with the security of their passwords via the 1Password Watchtower.

Companies that subscribe to 1Password Business get a free Family account for each user, too. These can be accessed via the same master password and help to encourage your users to store their personal passwords in their personal space. However, unlike some other providers, such as Keeper Security, the account is free only for so long as their business account exists.

1Password Business review: Management features

All of 1Password’s business subscriptions come with a number of guest accounts: five for Teams, 20 for Business. These are designed so you can grant access to specific password vaults to clients, accountants, and short-term or limited role contractors and freelancers, without having to pay for a full user seat.

Users can be added manually by email address or invited to sign up with a link sent to an address on an approved domain, but you can also invite people via Slack connector, and Business users can connect their Active Directory users using a dedicated bridge.

Business subscribers can also create user Groups with different access and admin permissions. Both Business and Teams users can create Vaults and assign different read/write permissions to their contents on a person-by-person basis.

However, more sophisticated access permissions are once again only available to Business subscribers: Access to 1Password can be allowed or blocked by continent, IP address, and app version. You can similarly force security rules regarding master password strength and require two-factor authentication. Sadly, this is a rather limited selection compared to the likes of LastPass and Dashlane.

1Password Business review: Verdict

1Password’s business offerings start with entry-level Teams tier, priced at $19.95 per month for up to ten seats, with the usual array of managed storage vaults, two-factor authentication, a tidy admin interface and basic permissions management.

However, if you need more than ten users - along with more granular permissions and user role management, activity logs and support for a range of single sign-on solutions - then you’ll want a Business subscription, at $95.88 (£69) per user, per year - but that’s rather expensive compared to Bitwarden and even LastPass’s equivalents.

Despite the cost and odd feature tiers, though, 1Password is pleasant to use, and the travel mode could be a killer app for an extremely international company.