[Info-vax] Anti-virus ?

[Arne Vajhøj]

On 8/10/2023 3:47 AM, Niels S. Eliasen wrote:
> Believe it or not...
> but was asked by a customer yesterday: "What anti-virus software exist on OpenVMS ?"
> Anyone that has knowledge of such a product for OpenVMS ?

I would push back on the idea.

Argument:
* virus (typical including worms even though it technically is distinct
   from virus) are very rare on VMS - the most widely known worm case
   must have been WANK dating back to 1989 - and I don't think I have
   ever heard of a VMS virus if discarding Carl Lydick's
   proof-of-concept in DCL sometime back in the 1990's
* even on platform traditionally plagued by virus (Windows) the threat
   has diminished a lot - back in the 90's and 00's Windows being hit
   by virus was common - today it is rare and many Windows users has
   dropped the addon AV products and just use the builtin Windows
* the traditional AV for VMS products did not protect VMS files
   but protected Windows files on a network share hosted on VMS - and
   using VMS for general network shares must be extremely rare
   today

Finding, buying, installing, configuring and running an AV
product on VMS will cost time and money and not increase
security significantly. So a waste.

If there is a desire to tighten security then there are
other areas with much higher RoI.

I would start look for things like:
* accounts with weak passwords
* application accounts with privs
* unnecessary network services
* network accessible standard applications with known vulnerabilities
* network accessible custom applications with vulnerabilities

Maybe even take a look at the classic of unencrypted network traffic.

Arne