MALWARE PROTECTION

for your computer system

Firstly, what is malware?

Malware is short for Malicious Software, it is designed to infiltrate a computer
without the user’s consent. Malware is also known as a virus, worm, Trojan
horse, root kit and spyware.

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What protection software is out there?

There are a number of expert providers of malware protection (let’s use the term AV going forward). The major players in the business space are Symantec, Trend Micro, McAfee  and  AVG – and NetCare provide support for all of these. They each have their strengths and weaknesses, but over all we consider them about equal in their effectiveness.

Historically for AV software, a business like yours buys the software, pays an IT consultant (like us!) to install it, pays an IT consultant to fix a problem when it stops working, pays an IT consultant to fix an AV problem that has got through the defenses, relies upon its own staff to check and run it regularly, arranges for someone – internally or the IT consultant – to regularly check that everything is working okay, pays annual subscription fees to renew the license, pays the IT consultant money to upgrade to the new version and sometimes has to pay the IT Consultant more money to fix the problem that the AV  upgrade caused (those of you running Symantec AV will know all about that!).

And there’s probably more too, but you get the picture – buying an AV package is not a “set and forget exercise”. And it’s not cheap either.

But every company must have some form of AV protection. There must be a better way…

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Software as a Service (SaaS)

…And we think we’ve found it. As part of our NetCare service delivery, we use a system management tool that fully integrates with one of the world leaders of AV protection – AVG. Now AVG for personal use is free – what I’m talking about here is their business grade solution which we are now able to provide to you for a fixed monthly fee.

Within the industry this new way of providing software is called SaaS  - software as a service. Instead of buying the product, you buy the service. It means that for a known monthly fee we provide you an ANTI-VIRUS PROTECTION SERVICE – and for that fee we install it, monitor it, upgrade it, report on it, and most importantly, remove any viruses, worms, Trojans and root-kits that are detected.
The only thing we cannot do is guarantee that nothing will sneak through – it’s not our product, so we can’t make that claim. If something is not detected by AVG you may incur an additional fee – for example when an exe file is received via email and a user clicks on it, installs it, and it turns out to be a virus.
And the solution does work exceptionally well – in fact over 40% of our clients have already converted over to NetCare EndPoint Security, and we would love ALL our clients to transition to it when their current AV software is next up for renewal. Because it’s a better solution at a better price.

How to convert over to NetCare EndPoint Security

As I mentioned earlier, the best time to consider changing is when your existing AV software is up for renewal – you’ve paid for the annual license, and for our time to upgrade it, so you may as well run the clock down on your existing investment.

If your current AV is registered with us, we’ll know too when your renewal is due and so we’ll liaise with you on the conversion process. Remember – there’s no extra costs to you other than the monthly fee for each user.

And, if over time you really find it’s no good, or we’re no good, or your company merges and you don’t need it any more, or for ANY other reason, then simply let us know and we’ll cancel the service prior to the next billing with no questions asked.