Norman Virus Control (NVC) is one of the most comprehensive and fastest anti virus engines uses patented sandbox technology to rapidly identify viruses and malware and reduce dependence on signature updates

Norman Data Defense Systems Inc

Norman is one of the world's leading companies within the field of data security. With products for risk analysis, virus control, access control, encryption, network security, PKI-solutions, data recovery and certified data erasure, the company plays an important role in the data industry.

Product Overview

Product Architecture

System Requirements

Administration

Supported Platforms

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Norman Virus Control (NVC)

Product Overview

The invisible enemy

Is your company prepared for the possibility of criminals or vandals who try to access your business secrets or wipe out your data? An attack by malicious software - "malware" - can result in significant economic losses and even affect the reputation and credibility of your organization.

In the late1980's, computer viruses moved from being a topic of theoretical discussions in professional for a, to becoming a real threat and nuisance. PCs were then only rarely connected to networks and the Internet revolution had not begun. Thus, the risk of a virus spreading was limited to exchanging files and diskettes between computers.

Modern PC's and networks are complex, fast and have an enormous capacity. They have given businesses a vast potential for cost effective management, and have made most companies completely dependent on computer use. The use of networks is widespread, and most companies are online and vulnerable to attack 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

This development has also increased the potential for destructive activity caused by malware. Today's viruses make their predecessors from the last decade seem archaic. As we move into the new century, viruses are starting to use Internet as their infrastructure, capable of spreading through a combination of email, web sites, newsgroups and chat rooms. Combined with refined new methods to avoid detection - like polymorphism and multilayered encryption - such viruses can cause world wide computer havoc in a matter of hours.

One of the fastest growing threats is the back door Trojans. These are espionage and remote access tools. If allowed to contaminate your system, they make it possible for unauthorized persons to gain full access to your network. Simply stated: Outsiders can access and do anything that your employees can access and do on their computers.

Norman launched its first virus control software in 1989 - as one of the pioneers - and has been in the battle ever since. Virus control has now become an advanced, extremely specialized area of software development, where only companies with a long-standing experience have the necessary competence to play a meaningful role.

Product Architecture

Norman Virus Control (NVC) is a collection of antivirus programs and utilities that protects your workstations and servers against malicious software. The most prevalent types of malware are viruses, worms, and trojans.

The single most important task for an anti-virus application is to keep computers free from viruses. Norman Virus Control is built around the advanced core technologies of Norman's Scanning Engine, which accurately detects known and unknown viruses, worms and trojans. When infected files are detected, NVC cleans, isolates or deletes them immediately -before the destructive code is activated. Many different programs are involved in this. Some of the most important are described below.

NVC is module based. The most important modules are:

On-access scanner

On-access scanning involves constant monitoring of the file system on servers and workstations. For an antivirus application, it is imperative to detect and block a virus before it is activated. Whenever a file is accessed in a read/write operation, or a program is executed, the On-access scanner is notified and scans the file on the fly.

Like the On-demand scanner, NVC's On-access scanner detects and repairs all types of malware. Whenever possible, an infected file is repaired before the file is handed over to the application. If repair fails, NVC denies access to the infected file. There are a number of configuration options for the On-access scanner, and in general it's a good idea to decide for a strategy when you configure this feature. NVC provides guidelines in the program, help files, and documentation.

On-demand scanner

This scanner is used for manual scans of selected areas on your machine. You can select entire drive(s), or certain folders and subfolders - even specific files - for scanning. From Windows Explorer, for example, simply point and click on the file system objects you wish to check, right-click the mouse button and select Norman Virus Control from the pop-up menu.

In networks, the system administrator can create scanning tasks to be executed, on selected, or on all workstations and servers in the organization. Tasks can be executed immediately, or scheduled for execution later, for example on fixed intervals.

Norman "Sandbox"

The Norman Sandbox module which is a part of the Norman Scanner Engine, further extending detection of new and unknown viruses. It inserts any suspicious file into a virtual computer, the Sandbox, monitoring the actions of the file in real-time. If virus behavior is detected, it performs the necessary actions to prevent damages from the virus.

Internet Protection

The Norman Internet Protection (NIP) module scans your incoming and outgoing e-mail as well as files downloaded from News Groups. To reduce the risk of virus infection, we have added file attachment blocking. This gives the user the possibility to set up rules in different ways for attachment blocking,

Block absolutely all attachments
Block any attachment with double extensions
Block attachments with CLSID extensions

You can also choose the following exception for the last to rules, block all except with these extensions or accept all except with these extensions.

It will configure automatically, manual configuration is only necessary if your email client isn't catered for in Microsoft Internet Account Manager or Microsoft Outlook Express. NIP minimizes the threat from both new and existing e-mail worms with both the best in virus scanning and straight forward attachment blocking.

Updating NVC

Norman Internet Update (NIU) is an integrated part of the product and can be configured to regularly check for new and updated files on Norman's product servers.

Theoretically, the entire product can be available for downloading if the changes are extensive, while previous versions only updated the scanning engine.

Equally important is the possibility of distributing the updated program immediately to all workstations in the network, and to all remote users upon their next connection to the company server.

Task editor

You can use the Task editor to create task files for scans that you wish to perform on a regular basis, or special scans that you intend to run in certain situations. For example, if you download files from the Internet to designated areas, you can create a task file that scans these areas only, and run the task manually after downloads. In addition, you can schedule the task to run at a pre-selected time.

Administrators can create task files and distribute them to all workstations in the network to ensure consistent checking of areas that require special attention.

Utilities

NVC Utilities is a tool that presents an overview of the current state of affairs for the NVC components on your PC.

In addition to viewing key information, you can change certain elements by selecting some of the entries, for example Task files. Other functions, like Components, provide information only and cannot be edited from the Utilities module.

Decompression library

To be able to scan files that have been compressed with different compression formats we have designed a new decompression module. With this module NVC is now able to scan more than 30 variants like ZIP, TAR, RAR, ARJ, UUENCODE, PAK, ARC JZ etc. There is also possible to configure maximum size of compressed files to scan, maximum depth of compressed files to scan and what to do with files that differs from these rules.

Messaging

Messaging is made up from two components: Message routing and Message handling.

Message routing allows administrators to select what kind of messages that will be routed to other PCs running NVC in the network.
Message handling allows users as well as administrators to select what kind of messages that are displayed or kept locally.

The messaging functionality is an effective way of keeping track of all activity related to NVC components locally as well as in the network.

Messaging module for administrators (Corporate versions only)

Administrators are able to configure which incidents will trigger messages sent by e-mails or SMS to selected receivers. On networks using SNMP you can also configure NVC to send messages to your preferred administration tool.

System requirements and language versions

Norman Virus Control version 5 supports these operating systems:

Windows 95
Windows 98
Windows Me
Windows NT
Windows 2000
Windows XP
OS/2

For Windows 95 Internet Explorer version 4.0 or later is required.
For Windows NT Service Pack 4 or later is required.

The following language versions are available.

English
Norwegian
Dutch
German
Danish
Swedish
Finnish
Slovakian
Czech
French
Spanish
Polish

The administrator's needs

In NVC version 5, particular consideration has been taken to the administrators' needs that the product should be easy to install, to rollout, update, configure, maintain, and manage.

Every administrator knows how important it is to have software that is easy to install, to roll out, update, configure, maintain, and manage. If it gives you additional work, or even headache to install and manage your software, you will most likely look for a new supplier. Norman has taken that into consideration when making the new version of the award winning Norman Virus Control. Norman Virus Control version 5 is just as easy to install and administer in a small LAN as it is in an Enterprise WAN. NVC 5 gives new meaning to TCO ("Total Cost of Ownership").

So what do administrators that choose NVC version 5 get?

User-friendly

We have focused on the management of software and the cost of ownership. The new version has four central characteristics:

Simplified installation
Simplified management
Invisibility
Updates via the Internet

Simplified installation

Rollout in networks is smooth. You simply install NVC on a designated computer (the administrator), select the configuration settings, and identify the workstations where NVC should be installed. Then the agent handles the rest automatically.

In a matter of minutes NVC will be installed on the selected computers.

Simplified management

Simplicity is also the philosophy behind software management.

Installation, maintenance and configuration are centralized in NVC. From one single point the administrator can administrate workstations either as a group or as separate units, depending on the network. You can decide which modules to install or uninstall and define, which rights end users, are granted. The changes are effective in a matter of minutes.

The messaging system can be configured in a number of ways, for example broadcasting of virus alarms, and logging of various other incidents to file or console.

In sum, valuable time is saved for the IT personnel that can be spent on more productive tasks of the company's IT systems.

Invisibility

Most users do not want to be actively involved with virus control software. Users in large networks do not necessarily need to know that an anti-virus program is installed on their computers. The constant presence of an anti-virus program that is running around-the-clock represents an important assurance. NVC version 5 provides this security.

Everything can be directed and managed from one computer.

Updates via the Internet

By using Norman Internet Update (NIU), it is now possible to update the entire product via the Internet.

Today there are approximately 50 000 different known viruses. New ones are constantly appearing, and NVC is continuously being updated in order to provide protection against new threats.

You can configure NIU to check for updated program modules and virus definition files at regular intervals.

Administrators can configure NVC to download and distribute updates to all workstations and servers, including employees with a home office.

Platform specific support

NVC is available for a number of platforms and integrates with a number of third party products as detailed below:

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Norman Virus Control:	Win9x/Me	WinNT/2000/XP	OS/2