eScan 10 - Content Security

MicroWorld’s eScan 10 is simple in its design and sits quietly in the background. Like a guardian angel that flies in from nowhere, it makes an appearance when a malicious script is detected on a website, or when someone plugs in a USB pen drive into the system. Its interface is simple, neat and well organized. For a security suite it is surprisingly light on system resources and works well on a 1 GB RAM test machine. At first, you do not see any dialog boxes with tabs and multiple options. In fact, there are just three main program functions: Protection, Scan and Tools. Dig a little deeper within each function and you’ll find all the options and controls. Scan reports are shown for all areas (files, email, fi rewall). Beneath this layer of simplicity sits a powerful anti-virus engine that keeps a watch on files, email, Web pages, network activities, registry changes, application activity, user access and privacy. eScan can check for viruses, Trojans, spam, spyware, adware, keyloggers, worms, rootkits and other malicious objects. There’s a built-in fi rewall and asset management feature too. In that sense, eScan offers all-round protection.



Features

MWL (MicroWorld Winsock Layer) technology is a highlight of this solution; it blocks security threats in real-time. There’s a MicroWorld Winsock layer between the Internet and the Windows socket layer that monitors all data traffic between your system and the Internet. So all email, attachments, downloads, FTP transfers and other traffic are scanned for potential threats before these get into your system. The other highlight is Non Intrusive Learning Patterns (NILP), an artificial intelligence-based technology that employs an adaptive mechanism in spam and phishing control. It analyses usage patterns and classifies mails as spam or legitimate mail. Other important features are 24x7 free tech support (telephonic, email, chat or forum) and the user-friendly interface.

Performance

After installation, eScan automatically scans all drives in the system. It then goes on to scan all email and generated an auto-spam white list. Apparently, eScan monitors all access to drives and applications. Some users will find it annoying to enter a password every time they plug in a USB drive, especially since there’s no ‘remember password’ option. On the other hand we think this is a good security practice.