UK-based SOPHOS has been protecting businesses from computer viruses for twenty years. When it came time to enter the Canadian market, SOPHOS learned that Canadians tend to prefer VARS, local sources of credit, and local contacts. Rather than opening and staffing their own offices, they went with Keating Technologies, a company with sixteen years of experience and constantly recommended by potential customers.

SOPHOS doesn't focus on end users, and also doesn't specifically aim at Linux. Its customers are businesses, governments, and educational institutionsthough they do allow their clients to license their virus products for employee use at home. Operating systems supported are everything from Linux and other Unix flavors to OS/2, Novell, and even a VAX/VMS machine at the White House. The software is solid, with a code base built on top of the same core code used twenty years ago, and networking was built in from the start as both a business model and technology.

The SOPHOS advantage, according to Keating, is Total Cost of Ownership. MD5 checksumming means that you don't have to slow a machine to a crawl in order to scan software to see if it's been interfered with: the software simply looks to see if the checksum has changed, a technique used by many other vendors to confirm that files have not been tampered with, but for some reason one that has not taken hold in the antivirus industry.

SOPHOS prides itself on service and support. Its product protects desktops, gateways, and servers with raw text updates, protecting you from damaging executables that might come down their own pipes. Virus hype is not used to sell or promote SOPHOS products: they have no special colored alerts, and don't even currently support software for PDAs and more because so far viruses aren't a problem in this area. Though, of course they're developing software for when this eventuality comes.

In the Linux world, it's easy to think that we're invincible. No system is completely secure. There are at least thirty documented viruses and worms so far that affect the Linux operating system, and no doubt are more to come. For a business, you should least have a plan of how you intend to deal with this eventuality.

Dee-Ann LeBlanc is an award-winning technical author with 11 books and over seventy articles in print. Along with writing, Dee-Ann teaches, develops courses, and also consults when time allows. Learn more at http://www.Dee-AnnLeBlanc.com/.

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