Panda Managed Office Protection Review

In general, I had few problems with the actual client software, the most serious being that it occasionally failed to update on its own and required me to force an update.  Updates are supposed to be a strong point of MOP: Workstations can be configured to update definitions through a peer-to-peer connection to another workstation on the same network or go out and get the update directly from Panda over the Internet.

In my testing, this flexibility saved significant bandwidth and decreased the amount of time the workstation was involved in updating. I was easily able to configure update frequency and rules through the management console.

The management interface is simple and straightforward, and can be found at https://managedprotection.pandasecurity.com. The home page shows licensing information and a status graph that lists detections and their sources. MOP has the ability to create multiple administrators (called users) with different privileges within the management console.

Additional reporting is available but not terribly informative beyond reporting protection status and detection activity in a few customisable graphs or pie charts. This is one of the places where Panda MOP simply doesn’t compete with a more extensive centrally managed enterprise endpoint security solution. Overall reporting lacks depth, although the executive report shows some good, high-level info that can be read at a glance.

From the Computers tab, I could list all the endpoints under management in a single list by groups, or I could search by name. It’s really easy to see which computers have protection turned on and signatures updated, and, by mousing over a computer name, I could obtain complete network information.

Clicking the Computer name opens a page entitled “computer details” that is, in fact, a bit light on details. It merely informed me which types of protection were enabled on that computer without offering anything more granular, configurable or informative. The only other option on this tab is to add a computer to the blacklist, which means that it will not have MOP installed on it and will not appear in the management console.

During tests. I downloaded and attempted to install a test set of key-loggers, rogue applications, adware and spyware, Trojan horses and viruses. MOP did best with viruses (it blocked eight of eight) and Trojan horses (it blocked two of two).

Performance was less stellar with key-loggers and adware. No key-logger was blocked or detected, and two of the two adware programs were downloaded, installed and run. (Surprisingly, InstantGet was not detected by MOP but blocked by IE 8.)

I then scanned the endpoint and found one of the key-loggers, but had not been removed. I was disappointed that the infections were not reported via the Management Console in real time, although real-time alerts are possible via e-mail (configured through protection profiles and warnings).

Conclusion

The Panda MOP SAAS server and workstation anti-malware solution allows systems to be managed and protected from a central location, regardless of whether they are inside or outside the company network. This saves on the upfront cost of buying and installing a central management server and the ongoing cost of maintaining that server. Panda MOP also uses true cloud-based functionality for analysis of suspicious files. In tests, malware detection worked well, at least when it came to viruses and Trojans.

Matthew D. Sarrel is executive director of Sarrel Group, an IT test lab, editorial services and consulting company in New York