Here I am, sitting at my desk faced with quite a dilemma. Our organisation has invested in new anti-virus software (which I won't mention by name). The internal systems team are overjoyed with the new product, because it's pro-active defense system stops a lot of new viruses from getting onto our systems, which means less work for them.
Unfortunately I am a mere cog in the machine and this new pro-active system has so far stopped Java from working (by quarantining JAVAW.EXE ????), it has deleted Smart board software and currently I am waiting for them to allow me to use a copy of Pinnacle 9 on a system I have set up to perform video file editing & conversions.
So what are my options exactly? Do I wait another 2 days for our team to implement the ruleset I suggested (which tells the A/V to leave everything in the Pinnacle folder alone). Should I wait as they add each single part of the application, one executable at a time? My only other option is to use a non-networked machine which will at least let me get on with the job in hand. While this suits my needs, I can't help thinking that since this machine has no antivirus, I can't put it on the network. Which means if it ever does get a virus from transferred files, it will become an incubator for whatever infection finds a way onto it.
If you find yourself out there considering writing a new antivirus package, it might be worth contacting a few software vendors. I would suggest a simple CD or DVD checksum approach. If the checksum is valid, let my applications install and allow them to do whatever they need to without quarantining anything. It might just save me 3-4 days in the process.
