Details of Trend Micro Worry-Free Business Security Services
Expert Ed Tittel takes a closer look at Trend Micro Worry-Free Business Security Services, an antivirus and antimalware product for small organizations.
Trend Micro Worry-Free Business Security is designed to protect physical and virtualized endpoints in small organizations (typically 2 to 100 users) from malware, data loss and web threats. This article focuses on Worry-Free Business Security 9, as well as Trend Micro's new Worry-Free hosted versions.
Feature set
Trend Micro offers Worry-Free Business Security in Standard and Advanced versions (for on-premises installation), and Worry-Free Security Services and Advanced Services, which are cloud-based hosted solutions. All versions provide antivirus and other malware protection for threats like bots and rootkits, antispyware protection, URL filtering to block access to certain websites, ransomware protection, and general web threat protection. In addition, they provide device control for attached devices, like USB and DVD drives, to help prevent data loss.
Worry-Free Business Security Advanced includes all the Worry-Free Business Security Standard features, plus real-time scanning of POP3 email accounts, email content filtering and data loss prevention, spam blocking before spam reaches the mail server, and, via Microsoft Exchange Server, phishing protection and Mac client protection.
Worry-Free Security Services and Advanced Services enable server-free protection in any environment, including branch and remote locations, and they support Android and iOS devices.
Platform coverage
Trend Micro Worry-Free Business Security Standard and Advanced support most editions of Windows desktop and server products. For the desktop, supported operating systems are Windows XP SP3 through Windows 10. Supported servers are Windows Server 2003 through Windows Server 2012 R2, along with some versions of Windows Server Essentials, Windows Storage Server and Windows Home Server. The product also supports macOS (desktop and server), but not Linux.
Supported virtualization platforms include Citrix XenApp, XenServer and XenClient; VMware ESX, Server and Workstation; and Microsoft Hyper-V and Remote Desktop.
For customers running Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync, Worry-Free Business Security Advanced supports devices running the Android, iOS, BlackBerry and Windows Phone mobile operating systems. For those users, mobile device protection includes device access control, remote wipe and security policy-enforced features, such as enhanced passwords and automatic locking after a period of inactivity.
The cloud-based Services and Advanced Services versions support password security and remote lock and wipe for Android and iOS devices, as well as remote locate, app scanning and unsafe website blocking for Android devices only.
Performance
No test results from independent testers were located for Worry-Free Business Security Standard or Advanced. However, those products use the same engines and pattern files as Trend Micro OfficeScan and Trend Micro Internet Security.
OfficeScan running on Windows 10 scored high on protection, performance and usability tests performed by independent tester AV-Test (a total of 17 out of 18 in November and December 2016), and Internet Security 2017 running on Windows 8.1 scored 17.5 points during the same period.
Manageability
Trend Micro pitches Worry-Free Security products as being easy to install and use, with minimal IT expertise required. Each product includes a security server with a web-based management console from which agents are installed on network clients; the agents run in the background on each client, using minimal system resources.
The security server enables an administrator to configure security settings, view agent and security status information, and push components to clients across the network. The security server also contains a database of internet threats, which are detected and reported by the agents.
Administrators can customize installation options, selecting only the components they need for a particular environment. Most continuous updates are stored on the security server and are pushed out to clients, reducing system overhead on those systems.
Pricing and licensing
Trend Micro Worry-Free Business Security (both Standard and Advanced) is licensed on a per-user basis and can be purchased online from the Trend Micro website; customers needing more than 100 licenses must contact a reseller.
The same pricing scheme applies to Trend Micro Worry-Free Services and Advanced Services. The following table lists the manufacturer suggested retail price for licenses with a one-year maintenance agreement, including program updates and standard support. Each license includes protection for two mobile devices, whether Android or iOS.
A free, fully functioning 30-day trial of each version of Worry-Free Business Security is available upon request by visiting the Trend Micro website.
Support
To resolve an issue, customers can use Trend Micro's online discussion forums and its detailed online knowledge base. Trend Micro also provides freely available downloads of all product manuals.
If further support is needed, customers can use Worry-Free 24/7 support, which is part of an active maintenance agreement, by contacting a Trend Micro support engineer by phone, email or the web. Worry-Free 24/7 support provides around-the-clock access to Trend Micro support engineers for priority issue resolution and help removing malware infections.
