PLC Programming tools and Antivirus

Curious if others run antivirus software on their programming laptops.

I've always been told to avoid antivirus, firewalls and antispyware/malware programs to prevent issues with interference with the software. Is this still true?

We use Rockwell's product line, Omrons, Beckhoff, and anything else we can get our hands on.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks,

It is of my opinion that you should always run something to protect your machine for a just in case situation. Even if you don't ever connect it to the web, you could always plug in an infected USB drive or disk.

Now that being said, the number one defense against malware is you. Not clicking on bait ads, links, email forwards, etc. I cannot remember the last time I had to deal with a virus/malware on my own machine. I'd say it's been at least 10 years. Not even a blip on the antivirus radar.

I'm pretty confidant in my abilities to avoid problems. But you never know so it's better to protect yourself. All it takes is someone elses thumb drive or connecting to a network that has been infected.

I do run antivirus and it seems to work fine with my PLC programs. Sometimes researching solutions brings you to the lower regions of the interwebs, that are not as legitimate as this wonderful website.

I run AVAST or AVG on my machines.

i run it on my main os but not on my vm's that i actually have programs installed on.

I should add that a rule like that was never true. Probably made up by someone that didn't quite understand why they were having the problem that they were having. It might be that some software needs a firewall exception or a piece of software was wrongly accused as being spyware, but these should be addressed with the antivirus / firewall software, not just abandoned.

You could easily say that you never get virus' so you don't need to protect your machine. And you may be successful with that. But I'd say you should read up on CryptoLocker. Your company would probably be pretty upset if you got that on your machine and/or their network. Virus/malware spread like wild fires so it's not just you that you'd be protecting. Cheap insurance.

I had AVAST Antivirus on my computer when I was programming a Modicon M340 in Unity Pro.
I remember having to turn it off since it interfered time and time again when I tried to connect and monitor the PLC.
On the other hand, that might have been somehow related to the fact that I had to run Unity Pro in compatibility mode for Windows 7.

Yup, Microsoft Security Essentials was the corporate standard. Didn't give me problems.

On the subject of avoiding viruses with good behavior, that is true to some extent. However, I've seen plenty of viruses spread via a USB stick from a colleague, or other "safe" means. For sure, you should avoid downloading that cool screensaver pack from some random website, but antivirus software is still a really good idea.

The main problems come when someone is using a PC that IT has locked down. If the firewall or antivirus detect the PLC software as bad, you need to work with IT to try to get it approved. The problem is that they often refuse. It isn't a software problem, it is a process/IT problem.

I would strongly suggest looking at whitelisting technology, instead of relying just on a signature based blacklist. It is much easier to come up with a list of software your computer should be allowed to run, than to constantly update the disallowed list with newly created viruses.

Personally, I run Comodo, and have had no issues. In addition to the normal antivirus/firewall, it also has a whitelisting component that asks me any time a non trusted program tries to do anything if it should be allowed. The main downside is that since it does exactly what you tell it to do, you need to know what you are doing for the tool to actually protect you.

+1 security essentials.
Absolute rules to never break,

1. Keep the virus software updated.

2. I don't care if its the president of the company who hands you the memory stick, portable hard drive, or cd, scan it first !!!

3. When connecting your memory stick or portable drive to another pc, scan it on yours when you're done !!

Two years ago one laptop or memory stick from a corporate person who visited a sister plant brought in a virus. What a mess!!

That's the rules where I used to work, my company rules, and my rule.

Scanned many devices, found 6 on a Cd, that's right, a cd someone burnt for us. Also found viruses on floppy disks.

regards,
james

MSE here

Used to use AVG long ago but it, like most others have turned to bloatware.

And whenever I see Norton360 on a machine I can almost guarantee that they are complaining about something being slow. Removing Norton usually makes it much better.

I run the Faronics toolset in our environment which includes Deep Freeze, AntiVirus, AntiExecutable and WinSelect. These tools will make your PC's and Servers bulletproof against any currently known attack vectors.

Too many features to list here. Check them out at Faronics.com and I can answer any questions about them if you like.

Just had to connect to a Morton Laminator bought from an auction in Malaysia, SLC5/05 ethernet'd to a PC running Easy Data Systems HMI. When I tried to save to my flash drive it showed weird. about 10 folders didn't show, no files on the root showed & 4 folders with short names (Docs, Pics, IE, PLC) showed as programs: Docs.exe, Pics.exe, etc. I immediately presumed a virus, but was able to create a new folder & save the RSLogix file to it.

When I put the flash drive in my computer AVG reported an infection, a full scan showed 2 virus's & a worm. Had to delete the 4 *.exe files then had to go to properties of all 14 folders & all files on the root, which were changed to Hidden & write protected, and unhide and un-write protect each one.

Installed AVG on the system & did a full scan (twice to make sure it was cleaned) & can now insert a flash drive without worry. Then I scheduled AVG to do a full system scan weekly Sunday night.

I vote for anti-virus & anti-spyware on any PC, networked or not.

I wont use Norton, tried it once with a free 30 day trial, installed it & had to reboot, then it immediately popped up the 30 day trial was over - it changed my system clock ahead 30 days. a big pain resetting the clock back with a few programs installed shutting down because the date was changed backwards. Never going through that again.

Running antiVirus is extremely important. I would read online reviews before taking advice on which antivirus to use, they are not all created equal. My personal choice is Kaspersky Internet Security, it always scores highly for virus detection and doesn't tend to bring up any false positives. But as I say, read the reviews. Computer Shopper magazine run well respected tests annually but I can't find a link to their reviews, will keep looking.

ALWAYS use AV.
Personally, I use ESET or Kaspersky, both of which work well, and don't create any noticeable slowdowns or problems.

The corporate policy here is to use Symantec, which works, but also slows the computers down a LOT, and require regular reboots just to keep things usable.

Our standard here is to use McAfee Stinger, which can be downloaded to a CD/DVD and run standalone without installation. The file available is updated weekly, I think, and we have never had any issues. We run a scan on all systems before each critical operation, and the CPUs for all HMIs are locked down in cabinets to prevent access by USB and CD. The programming laptops are also scanned and quarantined. The key here is control; none of our systems is EVER connected to the Internet, external networks, or uncontrolled media.