[c-nsp] ASA Question - Antivirus

[Richard Halfpenny]

Paul Stewart wrote:
> Hi folks...
>
> We have a customer looking for a new firewall but it must have antivirus on
> it.  The AV cannot be on the fly specifically but on the desktop.  Their
> currently solution forces their desktops to have a specific Antivirus agent
> installed and updated.  This is something similar to the NAC solution
> today....
>
> I'm looking at Cisco ASA 5520 Appliance Content Security Edition Bundle
> (Includes CSC-SSM-10, 50-user antivirus/anti-spyware license with 1-year
> subscription service*, firewall services, 750 IPsec VPN peers, 2 SSL VPN
> peers, 4 Gigabit Ethernet interfaces, and 1 Fast Ethernet interface)
> ASA5520-CSC10-K9
>
> Does anyone know how the antivirus/antispyware works on these?  I've read
> through numerous marketing material but it's not clear where this is all
> done on the fly or if it's desktop agent based?
>   

Hi Paul,

It is done on the fly.. we have a few educational customers using 
CSC-SSM-20's in ASA5520's as another layer of defence in addition to PC 
based antivirus.  The CSC-SSM's are basically card based servers 
(running Linux) and integrated into the ASA via GigE.  Be careful to get 
the correct module for the traffic mix you intend to run through it though:

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/prod/collateral/vpndevc/ps6032/ps6094/ps6120/prod_white_paper0900aecd805c3cd6.pdf

Rich.


-- 
Network Operations
Exa Networks Ltd :: AS30740