Virus protection

Question

What virus protection is suggested for light operating systems such as POS Ready 2009. Pos software often runs on low power hardware. What virus software is suitable for this environment?

Answer 1

I may get shot by others, but I would say none.

In any environment, these machines should be locked down, completely isolated from the main network, not have any internet connection and not allow any USB devices, optical drives, or anything to be run other than the POS application... You shouldn't even do updates once it is up and working (unless there is an update to prevent circumventing any of the above suggestions.

If however you do want antivirus, and this is not an embedded (non x86/x64) machine, just run any normal AV you feel comfortable with.

(FYI, when I say completely isolated from the main network... they should still be on a network, just separate Vlan and there should be a firewall/router that denies EVERYTHING other than the required ports for the POS application (and/or monitoring tools))

Answer 2

Any of the lightweight antivirus suites such as Microsoft Security Essentials, AVG, or Avast would probably fit the bill.

Avoid the major "Internet Security" suites such as Mafee or Symantec as they are very heavy weight and will severely impact performance on low-power machines.