Symantec Protection Suite Small Business Edition 2012

The Symantec Protection Suite seamlessly integrates essential technologies such as anti-virus and anti-spyware tools, a firewall, intrusion prevention, and device and application control. Like many other small business internet security suites, it may be controlled from a single console in your network, which will save your company time and resources.

Symantec Protection Suite combines all the essential business-security features to protect your file servers, email servers and individual endpoint workstations. The all-in-one solution also comes with backup and recovery features.

Certifications:

Symantec is certified by all five of the certification bodies we included in our evaluation. It is WCL certified, and is ISCA certified in both detection and cleaning. AV-Comparatives.org also ranks it well, but AV-Test.org ranks its protection factor lower than the products we ranked higher. Virus Bulletin also ranks it lower in its protection against Trojans.

Detection & Cleaning:

The suite's proactive, threat-scanning abilities provide one of the best anti-spyware and anti-virus protection systems available. TruScan evaluates both the good and bad behavior of unknown applications, resulting in more accurate malware detection. Symantec's heuristic detection also identifies threats that are engineered to bypass traditional security software.

Internet Protection:

Symantec Protection Suite is ready to protect your business from malicious software and hackers trying to compromise your business resources. With Symantec, you won’t have to worry about malware such as viruses, spyware, rootkits, adware, keyloggers or Trojans. The suite includes advanced messaging protection, and its Brightmail-based anti-spam feature protects your employees’ inboxes.

Management Features:

The Symantec firewall does a good job at keeping unwanted attacks out of your network. It also doesn’t cause a noticeable drain on your system resources. The Symantec firewall is rule-based and takes advantage of generic exploit blocking to stop malware before it even reaches your computers. Symantec also includes an IPS (intrusion prevention system) to stop invaders and hackers from compromising your system.

Symantec Protection Suite's device-control feature lets you control which peripherals can be connected to a machine. Administrators can even control applications at the workstation level, enabling or restricting users from running specific applications. It also allows administrators to control access to specific processes, files and folders. Administrators can also restrict access to system registries and processes, as well as certain activities deemed suspicious or high risk.

Another impressive feature is its integration of backup and recovery tools. The Backup Exec System Recovery Desktop tool allows you to perform backups that can easily restore a workstation in the event of an emergency. It will also create backups of your entire system without interrupting individual users.

Ease of Use:

Symantec Protection Suite is certainly a more advanced system than your basic consumer security suite. As such, we experienced a steeper learning curve when evaluating the interface. It was clear that the software wasn’t designed with the average computer user in mind. However, trained network administrators shouldn’t have any trouble learning the various ins and outs of the software, which provides simplified management and advanced reporting tools.

Help & Support:

Symantec offers a variety of support options. Like most software providers, the company offers email and phone support, although Symantec has been known to charge a fee for services over the phone. The company also provides an online support venue.

Summary:

Overall, the Symantec Protection Suite is a powerful small business security solution that is easily managed from a central location. The all-in-one internet security solution is ideal for small businesses, and it truly provides a good deal of powerful security and simple usability.

Symantec Protection Suite Small Business Edition Screenshots