Article: GFI LANguard Network Security Scanner Review

As its name suggests, GFI LANguard is a network security scanner that discovers vulnerabilities of network computers and can apply security patches. update important software, thus making your network a much safer place.

Network administrators know very well that a typical user tends to ignore all sorts of update prompts, which is why software on end-user computers quickly becomes outdated. This inevitably leads to major security threats for the entire network. For instance, consider the situation when a computer on your network gets infected by a virus and starts sending tons of spam. Very soon you discover that the IP address (or the IP address range) of your network is blacklisted, important emails cannot be delivered, and at the end you have to pay for the bandwidth that you did not really use. Even more dangerous situations can develop themselves if there is some restricted or confidential information on end-user computers.

GFI LANguard can discover and list all vulnerabilities of the operating system on remote computers (missing security patches), as well as vulnerabilities of installed software, system configuration etc. At your request it provides detailed information about the problems it finds and recommends one or more solutions. In addition to installing Windows security patches on remote computers, the program is capable of monitoring and updating other important software, such as internet browsers. Internet Explorer, Opera, Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Apple Safari are supported.

GFI LANguard has a set of preinstalled scan settings, it is possible to run a quick scan or the full scan right "out of box", without adjusting any values. However, you can easily select all items you want to check on remote computers and run a custom scan.

The security scanner uses quite extensive and frequently updated databases of known vulnerabilities, making more than 15,000 system checks. This allows you to detect possible problems before they can be used by malware or hackers. The program analyses all sorts of network hardware, including printers, routers, workstations, servers etc. After a network scan, the collected information is listed in an easy-to-read form, divided into logical categories (software status, system information etc.). The program can also represent collected information as diagrams.

As mentioned above, LANguard can install important Windows patches and other software updates remotely. It is also possible to deploy scripts and any custom software on remote computers. If there is a problem with some particular Windows update, the program allows to roll back to the previous state.

Being a powerful network security scanner, GFI LANguard is notable for its risk analysis features. It does more than just collecting information about network devices and their vulnerabilities. LANguard puts everything together and prompts where to start, which actions have to be taken as soon as possible, what can be postponed. This kind of help is invaluable for those who installed the program for the very first time.

GFI LANguard can save you much time and effort, while making your network more secure than ever.