I've held a contentious view on this in the past. Traditionally speaking,
viruses are only spread through user action, (Attachment, execution of
untrusted file, etc). A webserver should never be used for random internet
browsing, checking email, running untrusted software, etc. Also, you have to
consider the performance impact. If this server is running an intensive site
can you afford the CPU overhead of an active anti-virus scanner? Is it going
to lock files that need to be written to by the site?
If the machine is just a webserver then patch, firewall, use as
well-designed as possible code, and limit access & lock down as much as
possible. It seems to be that these five things would be enough to prevent
the viruses from taking control of your machine.
Remember, this is just viruses. Exploits are a completely different matter.
fr
-----Original Message-----
From: Shyaam [mailto:shyaam@gmail.com]
Sent: Monday, July 18, 2005 10:20 AM
To: ssgill@gilltechnologies.com
Cc: focus-ms@securityfocus.com
Subject: Re: Should webservers, eg. IIS 6 have anti--virus installed on
them?
According to my level of knowledge(which is very minimal, in this
especially), I would say that a web server should be patched well
first. the anti-virus is a secondary issue. Ofcourse, you need an
antivirus too, but there should always be good patches implemented
which checks for the latest signatures.
--Shyaam
On 7/17/05, Sarbjit Singh Gill <ssgill@gilltechnologies.com> wrote:
Greetings
Should IIS have anti-virus installed on them. I know I would do it for a
fileserver but for IIS, I rather lock it down.
Thanks.
/Gill
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Thank you in advance for your time and consideration.
Yours Sincerely,
R.S.Shyaam Sundhar
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