For many years, K-State has provided antivirus protection for Mac users with Symantec Antivirus (SAV) for Macs corporate edition (SAV). The bad news is that our license for SAV expires Oct. 27, and given the current budget challenges, there are no funds to renew. The good news is that Trend Micro now has a Mac antivirus client that is included in our site license, so it is already paid for with full support until March 2012 for all faculty, staff, and student office and home Mac computers.
SIRT, K-State’s Security Incident Response Team, is in the process of testing a beta release of a Trend Micro Security for Mac (TMSM) version 1.5. In fact, engineers from Trend Micro are on campus this week (July 27-28) to help install, configure, and test TMSM on servers and Mac computers around campus. Unlike SAV, TMSM is a manageable product and includes more security features, such as support for Web Reputation Services. Replacing SAV with TMSM will provide increased security for Macs and make it easier for system administrators to manage antivirus protection in a mixed environment with both Windows and Mac platforms.
Assuming the testing of TMSM beta 1.5 goes well, K-State expects to get the production release of TMSM 1.5 by the end of August, giving sufficient time to replace SAV on campus Mac computers before Oct. 27.
For now, those with new Mac computers should still install SAV to use until TMSM is available. SAV is available to K-State faculty, staff, and students at no charge from antivirus.k-state.edu.
Watch InfoTech Tuesday for more information about TMSM and its availability to the campus community.
