Once you've ensured that there are no gaping holes in your machine's defenses, it's time to think about taking action against anything malicious that might slip through. This is where an Anti-virus application becomes necessary. Columbia students, faculty, and staff are provided with a free license for Symantec AntiVirus. This software can be installed both at home and in the office.

While scanning a machine with an Anti-virus application is a good measure, it does not need to be done every day. The "realtime protection" functionality is much more immediately helpful. This functionality will attempt to stop and quarantine a virus as it attempts to execute.

Keep in mind that an Anti-virus application cannot defeat viruses that it does not know about, so it's very important that it be kept up to date. Symantec and Norton products use something called LiveUpdate to accomplish this. LiveUpdate can be configured easily to update daily or weekly, but be sure not to set it to a time when the machine will be turned off.

If your office workstation is administered for you, is part of a LAN, or you use the CUIT Central server please contact your system administrator before using the Symantec software.

If you currently have virus software on your computer, but you would prefer to use Symantec AntiVirus, you will need to Un-Install your existing software before installing Symantec AntiVirus. If you try to run two Anti-virus programs on your computer, they can conflict with other and not provide any protection at all.

Download page for Symantec AntiVirus

Symantec's website

To reach this page quickly in the future, use the keyword antivirus.

Send reports of security incidents, attacks, or questions to security@columbia.edu