14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft has just announced that enterprise Windows users can benefit from enhanced adware protection thanks to a new opt-in feature that can spot and stop potentially unwanted applications (PUA) from reaching their computers.
First and foremost, what’s very important to note is that this is an opt-in feature available exclusively to enterprise users, so administrators need to manually enable it if they want enhanced protection against PUA.
Only available for enterprise users
Then, the new adware protection system is only available in the company's System Center Endpoint Protection and Forefront Endpoint Protection solutions, with Microsoft saying that potentially unwanted applications will be blocked at download and install time.
“These applications can increase the risk of your network being infected with malware, cause malware infections to be harder to identify among the noise, and can waste helpdesk, IT, and user time cleaning up the applications,” Microsoft explains.
“Since the stakes are higher in an enterprise environment, the potential disaster that PUA brings can be a cause of concern. Hence, it is important to deliver trusted protection in this field.”
The PUA protection feature will receive further updates through the usual channels, including definition updates and cloud protection offered for enterprise customers, so no additional configuration is required, Microsoft guarantees, aside from the fact that it needs to be manually enabled.
What’s interesting is that, as far as the security level offered to corporate users is concerned, Microsoft isn’t really offering strong protection, with recent studies showing that the software giant scored the worst against malware and various threats.
The tests were performed on Windows 8.1 workstations, and Microsoft got the lowest score, with 2.5 points for protection, 3.5 points for performance, and 6 points for usability. The top performers were Bitdefender and Kaspersky Lab, which gained the maximum number of points in all these tests.