What is cloud antivirus?
Cloud Antivirus is a rather loose expression (or buzz phrase) to describe the process of preventing malware and viruses ever reaching the client machine. Usually this involves using light-weight agent software on the client machine or network server, but actually keeping most of the heavier processing and ‘sniffing’ on the provider’s server or infrastructure. Cloud Anti-virus is not easy to describe in simple terms but essentially it entails minimising the amount of processing and examination on the local machine, whilst carrying out the bulk of the scanning ‘in the Cloud’ – or at the service provider’s servers. This has the effect of reducing the overhead on the client machine(s) so performance is hardly affected, if at all.
Because the bulk of the updating (new definitions and algorithms) is done at service provider level, there is a reduced need to keep updating the local client machine. The principle behind Cloud protection is that it is faster to identify and quarantine potential threats at the Cloud server than when they have reached the client machine, possibly having already done damage which costs downtime and cash to fix. Man hours lost through contaminated and infected machines has never actually been counted, but as every firm knows having a PC or laptop in dry dock can often be as damaging to the business as having an employee playing truant!
If you’re concerned about the degree of antivirus and malware protection your company currently has, why not give ITWiser a call today or contact us here? We can offer free advice over the phone and arrange for a qualified technician or engineer to visit.
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