Product guide

Restricting potentially unwanted programs
VirusScan Enterprise protects your computer from potentially unwanted programs that are a
nuisance or present a security risk. One common unwanted program policy is configured, but
you can individually enable or disable the policy and specify actions for each of the VirusScan
Enterprise scanners.
Potentially unwanted programs (PUPs) are defined as software programs written by legitimate
companies that can alter the security state, or the privacy policy of the computer on which they
are installed. This software can, but does not necessarily, include spyware, adware, and dialers.
These embedded PUPs can be downloaded with a program that you actually want.
Security-minded users recognize such programs and, in some cases, remove them.
Configuring unwanted programs
To protect your computer from potentially unwanted programs you must configure categories
of unwanted programs to detect in your environment.
Configuration is a two-step process:
1 Configure the Unwanted Programs Policy to define which potentially unwanted programs
to detect and exclude:
• Select whole categories of programs or specific programs within a category from a
predefined list which comes from the current DAT file.
• Specify exclusions.
• Create a list of user-defined programs to detect.
2 Enable unwanted program detection in the on-access, email, and on-demand scanners,
then configure which actions to take when an unwanted program is detected.
NOTE: Detecting unwanted programs is enabled for the on-demand scanner differently because
the on-demand scan is a task not a policy. See Configuring on-demand scan tasks for details.
Tasks
Accessing the unwanted programs policies
Enabling unwanted program detection in the on-access and email scanners
Accessing the unwanted programs policies
Configure the unwanted program policies by selecting the categories of unwanted programs to
detect. For example, spyware and adware. You can also specify exclusions for programs not to
detect.
Access the unwanted programs policies using the following user interface consoles.
ePolicy Orchestrator 4.5 or 4.6
Configure the Unwanted Programs Policies with this user interface console.
Task
For option definitions, click ? in the interface.
Part I - Prevention: Avoiding Threats
Restricting potentially unwanted programs
McAfee VirusScan Enterprise 8.8 Product Guide38