A gateway scanner is used at each of NYU's global sites to detect and remove as many viruses and worms as possible before they get to your computer. However, no scanner can catch every virus. If your computer gets infected and you don't clean it, you could be removed from the network to protect other people's computers. Therefore, it is important that you take steps to protect your computer.

You can choose a free anti virus or firewall from our site if you like. We also have FREE Anti Spyware programs to choose from as well

Through a site-license acquired by ITS, NYU provides Symantec AntiVirus and, for Windows, Lavasoft Ad-Aware software to members of the University community at no cost to the individual. Qualified community members can download this package from the Ask ITS area of NYUHome (NetID and password login required). Once you have installed the software, be sure to update the virus definitions immediately.

Anti-virus software is vital software for any PC. This software protects your computer from malicious files (computer viruses, worm files) that attempt to load themselves on to your machine and carry out commands, damage data, reproduce themselves, and infect other machines. Anti-virus software should be regularly updated and set to work actively, preventing computer infections by these malicious programs.

Many people have specific preferences as to what Anti-Virus to use on their servers and we do not want to assume on what you like. You are more than welcome to install whatever program that suits you.

There are varying levels of protection provided by anti-virus software. The differing levels of protection depend on a number of factors, including: Desktop anti-virus software can protect systems, but desktop software is subject to significant delays in updating. Virtually all recent virus outbreaks have been email-based and spread extremely fast throughout an enterprise.

Please let us first assure you that we do not have any viruses in our program and will never intentionally harm our user's computers. We will explain why anti-virus software detects FREE CompuSec® as a virus, essentially due to the mbr.bin and the flp_mbr.bin files. CompuSec® has a pre-boot authentication mechanism that requires a modification of your Master Boot Record (MBR).

Due to the nature of XactCopy hiding drives from the operating system, some Anti-Virus programs interpret XactCopy's activities as a virus. There are currently no known issues with anti-virus software and XactCopy. If you experience a problem while using XactCopy and anti-virus software, please send us a bug report using our support wizard.