Symantec Endpoint Protection 11 Review

Bottom-Line: Virus protection has gone from a nice-to-have utility to an absolute necessity; Symantec Endpoint Protection 11 is the anti-virus program I want in my corner.

There was a time when desktop/home computing was still in its infancy that viruses although destructive, were not a constant threat and thus not a constant worry.  My, how times have changed.  The explosion of network computing, email, file sharing and the Internet has given birth to a parallel phenomenon; namely the almost constant barrage of very destructive and disruptive viruses that can literally travel the world in minutes. 

There are have been widely reported cases of viruses and "virus-like" worms spreading through large computer networks and the Internet causing whole companies to shut down their computer infrastructures.  Most of the viruses have been more of a nuisance, but some have caused computer hard drives to eat themselves, and still others, have caused computers to repeatedly reboot themselves. 

The virus is not new but it keeps popping up, sewing havoc wherever it goes.  The common denominator in most of these attacks is that they were passed from user to user in quick succession via email, or files brought from home and used on corporate computers.

The irony of a virus is that if infected computer(s) are protected by a good antivirus program much of the damage they wrought could be prevented.  An anti-virus program running in the background can detect most of the virus's circulating around the internet, and clean affected files if necessary. 

Even if the antivirus program cannot clean the infected file, most can at least isolate it and keep from doing harm the rest of the computer system.  One of the antivirus programs I trust is Symantec Endpoint Protection, and we just upgraded to Version 11 at work.    

Symantec Endpoint Protection 11 supports Windows 7, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, Windows XP, and Windows 2000. There is an antivirus client for various distributions of Linux as well.

My Viewpoint

The sole purpose of an antivirus program is to protect your computer from viruses, malware, spyware, and this is where Symantec Endpoint Protection tends to outshine the rest.

Symantec Endpoint Protection 11 includes a host-based intrusion prevention system (HIPS) that uses TruScan proactive threat scanning to prevent zero-day attacks and at the same time locks down the desktop so that only authorized applications and programs can run.

Also, the copying of files to USB and other memory devices is regulated by Symantec Endpoint Protection's device control functionality. Antivirus and antispyware features (along with anti-rootkit protection) guard against malware.  A network Intruder Protection System (IPS) rounds out the application, along with a fairly robust firewall that provides low-level protection from network threats.  

And of course Symantec Endpoint Protection 11 include auto-protect and email scanning of outgoing and incoming e-mail messages.

Virus protection has gone from a nice-to-have utility to a necessity that every computer connected to the Internet, or a network (work or home), or used jointly, cannot do without.  For me Symantec Endpoint Protection 11 is one of the best anti-virus/anti-spyware/anti-malware program on the market, and I highly recommend it.