Microsoft ForeFront Security was previously known as Microsoft Client Security. Upon opening the program, one will notice that the interface is very similar to Microsoft Security Essentials. However, the program differs in the fact that it can be installed on servers for free and also clients connected to the servers (endpoints). There hasn’t been a free antivirus option for businesses and servers other than clamwin. PC tools free used to support servers but the company has since canceled the support. The ForeFront server option also means that an administrator can manage ForeFront Clients in one place and updates can be downloaded to the server and then distributed to the individual client machines. This would normally require administrators to purchase antivirus licenses per client and server but now is free.
The Microsoft ForeFront installation on a client computer was seamless and something that users and especially me have come to expect from Microsoft. The program download was approximately 14 megabytes in size. The installation comes in an MSI package and there is also a several other download options that include the manager for the server and others. There is a 64bit (amd64) and 32bit (x86) executable for corresponding systems.
After the installation was complete, Microsoft ForeFront asked for a restart. Being me, I of course denied this, and interestingly, ForeFront understands this and started the program regardless. Also, after the first launch ForeFront immediately started updating itself automatically. The update took about 10 minutes which is understandable considering that the installation does not include updates in the small installation file.
Microsoft Forefront includes some advanced protections including protections against network exploits, behavioral monitoring, option to scan all downloads as they are downloading, full real time scanning, daily scheduling, and account access restrictions to log file etc.
After the update was completed I decided to restart the test system. Upon reboot Microsoft ForeFront started an automatic quick scan. The virus scan scanned about 95000 files in about 15 minutes. On the test system ForeFront did not detect any malicious software. During scanning, Microsoft ForeFront used about 90 megabytes of ram and about 10 percent CPU power. The program scans files at a rate of 5 to 8 megabytes per second, which is faster than most free antivirus.
Now, according to some IT administrators that I have talked to, Microsoft ForeFront has problems with USB flash drives. The actual statement was that Forefront does not automatically neutralize and scan autorun.info files leaving the client computers vulnerable to infection. In fact, a campus network was infected by the Conficker virus due to ForeFront failing to detect the malware via a USB drive. Hopefully this functionality will be included in future versions. However, in the mean time install a free usb vaccine program to prevent autorun.inf files from launching automatically.
