The Cornerstone of Hard Drive Protection
Centurion Technologies VP Keith Rickman on the upside of relying onreboot/restore technology to guard against viruses and user sabotage.
T.H.E.: 
How d'es reboot/restore technology differ fromantivirus/spyware protection?Rickman: Antivirus protectiondetects only knownviruses, which are those thathave been identified and adefinition created. This meansthat unknown viruses—thosenot yet recognized or with nodefinitions written for them—will still bypass antivirusprotection. Conversely,reboot/restore protectiond'es not require recognition or definition specifics, and willprotect against both known and unknown viruses. And withspyware protection, much like antivirus protection, only itemsthat appear to be spyware or adware are eliminated. Butreboot/restore technology provides a blanket of protection thateliminates any unwanted change instantly. Spyware eliminationproducts also can be confusing and time-consuming with thedaily, weekly, or hourly scans that must be run to identify threats.With reboot/restore technology, the user simply reboots, and themachine is cleaned of all malicious code.
Administrators often use policies; d'esn’t that keep users fromgetting to anything that could harm the system?Policies are great for limiting availability. However, technicians arestill needed to clean up the areas where users are allowed to go,and,unfortunately, must still deal with basic user error. Withreboot/restore protection, it d'esn’t matter what end users aredoing or where they are going since they can’t harm the machine.This allows for a full user experience with no restrictions. If policiesare required for limiting content availability, they can be used inconjunction with our protection. This provides total control alongwith complete hard drive protection.
How d'es reboot/restore technology protect against user error,or users who try to sabotage machines?All changes that occur during use are written to a temporarystorage space and not the hard drive; this space is cleared uponreboot. Anything a user might do—upload files, download gamesand music, or even delete everything from the hard drive—istemporary. It seems to the user as though these changes aresticking,but an administrator knows that with a simple reboot, themachine is back to its original state.
WHERE’S THE PROTECTION?
In the fight for security, it’s good to know where the battles are won—or lost.
This article originally appeared in the 09/01/2005 issue of THE Journal.