Seven Sure Fire AV Solutions for Win7 Clients

After the interoperability nightmares that cropped up after the Vista launch, Microsoft took special pains to work closely with all of its ISVs and hardware partners through its Ecosystems Readiness program in order to ensure smooth user transitions to Windows 7. Included in the mix were Microsoft’s many security partners, most of whom have already optimized their newest versions for Windows 7. Even though Microsoft has certainly worked to better lock down its operating systems through the Secure Development Lifecycle (SDL), antivirus and antimalware security still remains an important part of the Windows ecosystem. As channel partners help their customers upgrade to Windows 7, AV is a no-brainer up-sell in order to complete the upgrade package.

Norton Internet Security 2010 and Norton AntiVirus 2010 include Symantec’s new Quorum technology, which pulls together knowledge gained from anonymous software patterns within Symantec’s user community and lab research to automatically detect malware executables.

McAfee has gone full throttle this year with its security-as-a-service strategy this year. Channel partners who’d prefer to sell AV through a SaaS model during the Windows 7 upgrade can count on McAfee’s Total Protection Service to work seamlessly with the new OS.

TrendMicro improved on its Internet Security suite for 2010 by refining its Security Activity Dashboard to give clients a more comprehensive and customizable snapshot of security activity on their machines. Trend also added its own reputation-based technology with its Smart Protection Network.

Kaspersky Internet Security 2010 has already garnered numerous awards for its speedy and efficient performance. Cascadia Labs voted the AV suite top of the heap over five other leaders for both effectiveness and ‘polite’ performance, or its ability to keep a low profile.

Still in beta, but due out in early 2010, the new Webroot Internet Security Complete is being positioned as a game-changer for consumer and SMB markets.A hybrid desktop/cloud security product, it layers features like secure online storage, password management across multiple devices and anywhere Web access to files all on top of its existing AV platform.

Introduced earlier in the year, ESET’s NOD32 Antivirus 4 and Smart Security 4 added advanced archive scanning, media access control and an integrated system diagnostics tool that can find rootkits without a full AV scan.

Sophos is wrapping up endpoint protection and rudimentary DLP into a complete package with its Sophos Endpoint Security and Data Protection, version 9. Designed with the enterprise in mind, the solution controls AV, NAC, full-disk encryption and DLP with a single agent on the desktop.