Antivirus information

University-owned computers

The University of Melbourne has a bulk licensing agreement with McAfee allowing the use of McAfee Enterprise Active Virus Defense (AVD) for Windows and McAfee Virex for Macintosh. This agreement covers University-owned computers and runs until the end of 2009. Both products are available for download from the Softdist server by authorised account holders.

Privately-owned workstations and notebooks that are routinely connected to the University network and used for University business are also covered under this agreement.

Staff and student privately-owned computers

Privately-owned computers that are not routinely used for University business are not covered under the license agreement for McAfee enterprise products. The University recommends using avast! 4 Home Edition for Windows computers and ClamXav for Apple Macintoshes. Both programs are free to download and use and the Service Desk provides technical support for their use.

While ClamXav is licensed under the GPL and may be installed on any computer and used for any purpose, avast! 4 home edition can only be used for home and non-commercial use and it cannot be installed on any University-owned computers.

• Guide to installing avast! 4 Home Edition
• Guide to installing and configuring ClamXav

Staff (not students) running Windows computers may also use McAfee Home Edition which is available for download from the University. You will be required to enter your username and password in order to download the software.

ePO service

During the first quarter of 2006, Information Services piloted a McAfee ePolicy Orchestrator (ePO) service. ePO allows for:

• enforcement of antivirus protection and central deployment of virus DATs, engines, service packs, hotfixes and patches.
• detection and reporting of non-compliant or unprotected systems
• reporting on the scope of virus infection and removal
• Microsoft patch compliance auditing and rollout
• centralised monitoring and configuration of security and antivirus policies with administration delegated to local administrators

If you are interested in more information about the pilot program or the full ePO service, please contact the Service Desk on x40888.