McAfee is known for its top ranking antivirus and online security products. Free and paid home users benefit from McAfee’s large and frequently updated virus engine and description files. Businesses and Professionals will be pleased to know that this security is taken a level higher for Business and Corporate users through McAfee SaaS Total Protection.
SaaS is a new emerging term for “software-as-a-service”. A good example of a SaaS is webhosting – you subscribe to the hosting service, you use the online tools and storage of the hosting product, and on the other end, the support and maintenance of your hosting plan is maintained by the hosting provider. McAfee SaaS is provided for Business and Corporate customers. It provides a centralized distribution, updating, reporting, and management of McAfee antivirus to all devices and users within the enterprise. This huge benefit of using McAfee SaaS Total Protection reduces a lot of burden for the IT Staff. It gives users an easy and reliable “install-and-forget” antivirus. I’ll show you a peek inside a live and running McAfee SaaS implementation on one of my managed networks.
Home page of the McAfee SaaS Total Protection Control Panel
The entire management and deployment McAfee Antivirus-AntiMalware-Firewall is done online. This centralized management website allows IT Administrators to work from anywhere and check real-time data of the company’s computers.
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Installing McAfee SaaS Total Protection on new computers can be pushed through an email or a unique installation url.
Amazingly, McAfee has put a lot of thought in the installation process. Administrator privileges is not required. This makes installation and re-install easy for both users and the IT Staff.
A screenshot of the list of installed computers and devices
Configurations page for Antivirus, AntiSpyware, and Firewall
Settings made on this page are automatically pushed through all computers. This is indeed a heaven-sent feature that ensures all computers are updated and setup to the correct security settings.
A list of computers with virus detections
This is so much better than having to check each computer’s antivirus log. Even better, is that McAfee automatically cleans/deletes any found threat. It also provides a link for the details of the threats.
McAfee SaaS Total Protection reminds administrators of outdated computers - those who have not yet gone online to receive the latest antivirus definitions OR security policy updates.
In this screenshot, we examine an actual virus detection
McAfee lists the infected computer, virus name, date, and action taken. It provides a link within McAfee’s Antivirus Database for the information and removal instructions of the detected virus.
Results and virus information from McAfee’s Antivirus Database
A computer installed with McAfee SaaS Total Protection has a very basic program GUI.
There are hardly any settings that a user can view or modify. All antivirus settings are saved in the centralized control panel
The simplicity of the client antivirus ensures that users cannot tamper with the security settings.
Busy IT Administrators can be at ease, knowing that McAfee SaaS Total Protection is working 24/7 to protect their computers. An optional daily/weekly report of virus detections and computers can be emailed.
