School wireless network forcing me to install Sophos Antivirus...

1132 Views 26 Replies 18 Participants Last post by A-E-I-Owned-You, Mar 17, 2009

d3v0

Discussion Starter · Mar 12, 2009

I am currently running NOD32 on my 1000HE. I use this to take notes during class and i frequently like to google things in lecture so I decided to connect to the network. I installed Cisco Clean Access Agent (which I really wanted to bypass...) and installed all updates for my OS (winxp home). Now it is requiring me to install Sophos anti-virus, telling me to uninstall NOD32.

Is it worth it? Should i replace NOD32, or is Sophos pretty crappy? I also get on a wireless network at work as well, will CCA/Sophos impede this for me?

Or can I somehow keep both, only enabling Sophos on days when I have classes?

1 - 20 of 27 Posts

stevenma188

· #2 · Mar 12, 2009

Definitely, you should not have 2 real-time antivirus programs running. I don't know too much about Sophos, but I'm a huge fan of NOD32. I guess, however, if you cannot connect to the school network without Sophos, than you really have no choice but to uninstall NOD32 and use Sophos.

98uk

· #3 · Mar 12, 2009

How does it check whether you are running Sophos? Wonder if re-naming the NOD32 .exe would trick it?

d3v0

Discussion Starter · #4 · Mar 12, 2009

gonna try that now.

procpuarie

· #5 · Mar 12, 2009

that is barbaric. i like my school. they block nothing and require nothing to be on the network.

Lige

· #6 · Mar 12, 2009

How exactly does that all go through? Can you uninstall the Cisco Clean Access Agent after you have gained access to the network?
I have never heard of Sophos, but after looking through the web site, I would try to stick with Nod32.

Maybe e-mail your IT Department and ask them for an exception if possible.

Indignity

· #7 · Mar 12, 2009

I doubt renaming will work. It's probably looking for a particular service that's running & they have a Sophos "appliance" with it's own set of rules..

One thing I will say is at least it isn't Norton lol!

What do they do for *nix clients? Maybe ask them that. Hell, maybe it'd be worth it to go naked for the short period of time you are in class.

[pi]

· #8 · Mar 12, 2009

That seems strange.

My school only requires that you have an active/running anti-virus to connect to the network. They don't specify, although they recommend a few fee-based and free programs that are good options.

Definitely try contacting your IT/network department and see if you specifically need Sophos. If so, that's lame and you know what you need to do.

Good luck!

xxicrimsonixx

· #9 · Mar 12, 2009

3

That is random...

I like my school, they password protected it, so students could not get on without teacher's approval and password... By day 3, the school knew the password

, and 4 months later they still have it password protected with the same password

...

See less See more

Aeloi

· #10 · Mar 12, 2009

We use Cisco Clean Access Agent at our school too but we allow NOD 32 along with others like Avast, AVG, Avira, etc. You should be able to use a different anti-virus unless they specified Cisco to only allow Sosphos which then I think your IT team sucks.

stanrc

· #11 · Mar 12, 2009

I know my school did something like this. Before being granted access to the internet you had to download a tool that would verify you had AV (updated) and MS updates as well. They didn't force one AV but it would often fail to recognize some of the lesser known AVs.

Its a smart policy but it sounds like your school is taking it too far. I would contact your IT department and show them you have adequate AV and see if they will allow it.

f4tqu4ck

· #12 · Mar 12, 2009

My university say they "require" sophos also. I never installed it and still browse fine. They do have it on every university computer around all the labs on campus and it wouldn't even know it was there unless you looked for it.

d3v0

Discussion Starter · #13 · Mar 12, 2009

Yeah my browser works but its "quarantine" and gives me a 90 minute limit haha.

Renaming didn't work, and ill contact the IT dept, seeing as I've never even heard of sophos, I'm sure my nod32 takes a steaming crap on it.

MobAttack

· #14 · Mar 16, 2009

Quote:

Originally Posted by procpuarie

View Post

that is barbaric. i like my school. they block nothing and require nothing to be on the network.

I feel lucky then too. My university didnt require or block anything either. It was nice going to questionable sites to try out questionable program to make sure they work. Course there was not much shared network/sever uses, and the machines basically got wiped clean of your tracks as soon as you logged off (all major programs where run off mainframes)

See less See more

C-bro

· #15 · Mar 16, 2009

We also use Clean Access Agent and Sophos. I use NOD32 as well and I always get quarantined. Clean Access is what checks if you have all your updates/AV/whatever installed. You can bypass it by using Firefox and modifying your User Agent string to "fool" the network into thinking you're a Linux machine. You'll still have to login with a valid username and password, but it bypasses all the CCAA stuff.

Reactions: 1

murderbymodem

· #16 · Mar 16, 2009

My school recently got Sophos too. It's just high school though, so I don't do anything with a laptop of my own or anything, I just noticed it was recently installed. It seems crappy. Then again I don't use any AV on my own machines, so I'm the wrong person to ask.

I hope whatever college I go to isn't like that, I'll be using Linux while I'm in College since I won't be gaming, I'm going to rage if I can't because of some dumb AV program.

d3v0

Discussion Starter · #17 · Mar 16, 2009

Quote:

Originally Posted by C-bro

View Post

We also use Clean Access Agent and Sophos. I use NOD32 as well and I always get quarantined. Clean Access is what checks if you have all your updates/AV/whatever installed. You can bypass it by using Firefox and modifying your User Agent string to "fool" the network into thinking you're a Linux machine. You'll still have to login with a valid username and password, but it bypasses all the CCAA stuff.

The thing is though, according to the ToS of CCAA, it could perma-ban my IP for trying to fool the system into thinking I am running a linux OS.

See less See more

murderbymodem

· #18 · Mar 16, 2009

3

Quote:

Originally Posted by d3v0

View Post

The thing is though, according to the ToS of CCAA, it could perma-ban my IP for trying to fool the system into thinking I am running a linux OS.

Oh, so they are Linux friendly. That's good

Why not just use Linux then?

Really though, you could just boot up a live CD on the days you need to use their network. Won't have to use their antivirus, and won't need to install Linux either.

See less See more

d3v0

Discussion Starter · #19 · Mar 16, 2009

Netbook =/= optical drive

See less See more

murderbymodem

· #20 · Mar 16, 2009

http://www.pendrivelinux.com/

Plenty of tutorials on how to make just about any distribution into a Live-USB.

1 - 20 of 27 Posts

This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.