Part 2 – How we approach AntiVirus in Small Business

My approach to Small Business Antivirus is multi leveled. I keep Antivirus as simply one component of my data protection strategies under the Security Umbrella. My first strategy in protecting a client or myself for that matter is to take measures to stop viruses and other attacks before they reach our shores. A few years back after several of our clients were attacked by crypto viruses we implemented OpenDNS to all clients. This is a DNS cleansing service that protects your network and mobile devices by filtering out malicious sites. A few years after we implemented OpenDNS they were purchased by Cisco, this validates the value of their product imho. In the years since we implemented it we have not had a single crypto infection or any other virus for that matter. Good news is for the client that did get crypto infections our comprehensive RESTORE strategy had clean copies of their data, we cleaned the crypto and recovered all of their data by the time the next shift started. We succeeded in recovering 100% of the clients data but we still suffered downtime and disruption that we have since eliminated. Next we cleanse inbound email through a couple of different cloud services Mimecast and Office 365 built in tools are our go to products. This means that we have a high level of control over cleansing our mail prior to it ever getting into our inboxes and our systems. Once we have the inbound data stream cleaned up we insure that we have up to date and appropriately implemented firewall in place and some good centralized Antivirus and Malware solutions and we are ready to compute.