Do I need to deploy antivirus and anti-spyware software to all the PCs on my network?

Question

I am already using antivirus on all our PCs, and, of course, we're behind a firewall. Does anti-spyware software like adaware still provide an additional benefit, or does modern antivirus/firewall software solve this problem?

Answer 1

Modern Anti-virus software should already provide anti-spyware countermeasures. Symantec AV Enterprise, which is what I use on Windows based PC, does.

Answer 2

I think you get the biggest bang for the buck just by using the Microsoft provided anti-spyware solution, Windows Defender.

It has the following advantages:

1. Updates pushed out via Windows Update
2. Supports Group Policy
3. Free
4. Supports Windows XP and up including Server OSes

Alternativley you can look at Microsoft Forefront Client Security which provides an integrated anti-virus and anti-spyware solution.

Answer 3

Depends on your environment. If you have many people taking home laptops or are pretty lax with website restrictions, keeping some third party solution around is quite beneficial. We have an enterprise AV, but then load each workstation with Hijackthis and at least Spybot. I find that most of the time I can use Hijackthis to identify infections. Spybot gets less play these days but is still used for the immunize feature.

I can tell you that not all AV/spyware programs are going to catch everything, so have a main program and some other options.

Restricting sites and content is probably the best protection.